Head to head
Stop guessing which one. Put them side by side.
Up to 4 tools, same rows for each: what it is, what it really costs, the trap, and how to wire it up. The URL carries your picks — send it to anyone.
Screaming Frog SEO SpiderGoogle Search ConsoleHacker News and Reddit
Quick read
- Free with no card: Google Search Console, Hacker News and Reddit.
| Field | Screaming Frog SEO Spiderscreamingfrog.co.uk | Google Search Consolesearch.google.com | Hacker News and Redditnews.ycombinator.com |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | SEO Spider is a desktop crawler that fetches every URL on a site and reports broken links, redirect chains, duplicate titles, missing meta descriptions, hreflang errors and orphan pages. It renders JavaScript and pulls in Search Console, Analytics and PageSpeed Insights data. | Search Console reports how a site performs in Google: queries, impressions, clicks and average position, plus index coverage, sitemap submission, Core Web Vitals and manual action notices. Data spans 16 months and can be exported by API or streamed into BigQuery. | Hacker News ranks links by upvotes with a steep time decay, and Show HN is the convention for launching your own work. Reddit distributes through topical subreddits, each governed by its own self-promotion rules and volunteer moderators. |
| Category | SEO, growth & newsletter | SEO, growth & newsletter | SEO, growth & newsletter |
| Cost tier | mixed | free | free |
| Pricing | Free: 500 URLs per crawl with nearly all features. Licence £199/year per user (roughly $250). Volume discounts: £189 each at 5-9 licences, £179 at 10-19, £169 at 20+. | Free forever, no paid tier and no seat limits. Performance data covers 16 months. API, Looker Studio connector and BigQuery bulk export all included at no cost. | Free. Hacker News sells no placement at all. Reddit sells ads separately, but organic posts in any subreddit cost nothing. |
| Why builders pick it | Fastest way to find what is technically broken before blaming the algorithm. Free mode crawls 500 URLs, which covers a young project entirely, and the licence just removes the cap. | The only source of real query data — every other tool estimates. It shows which articles Google already ranks and which queries you nearly rank for, which is where the cheapest traffic lives. | A front-page HN post moves thousands of technically-minded readers in an afternoon and reliably produces backlinks. One well-matched subreddit can outperform every paid channel for a niche publication. |
| Watch out for | It runs on your machine and eats RAM — large crawls need database storage mode and patience. No scheduling, history or dashboards unless you build them yourself. | The Performance UI caps at 1,000 rows per query and samples heavily; use the API or BigQuery export for full data. Its numbers will never match your analytics tool. | Both punish marketing tone: HN buries promotional titles and Reddit mods ban accounts with no comment history. Spikes are single-day events, and an HN front page can take down under-provisioned hosting. |
| How to wire it up | Download the desktop app; free mode needs no account. | Verify via DNS TXT record or your host's one-click integration. | Post as Show HN with a plain descriptive title and no adjectives. |
| Editor's pick | No | No | No |
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# Tool comparison — Screaming Frog SEO Spider vs Google Search Console vs Hacker News and Reddit Source: Kbaise, a directory of tools that work with Lovable projects. Pick one and tell me why before writing any integration code. ## Screaming Frog SEO Spider (screaming-frog-seo-spider) - URL: https://www.screamingfrog.co.uk/seo-spider/ - Category: SEO, growth & newsletter - Cost: mixed — Free: 500 URLs per crawl with nearly all features. Licence £199/year per user (roughly $250). Volume discounts: £189 each at 5-9 licences, £179 at 10-19, £169 at 20+. - What it is: SEO Spider is a desktop crawler that fetches every URL on a site and reports broken links, redirect chains, duplicate titles, missing meta descriptions, hreflang errors and orphan pages. It renders JavaScript and pulls in Search Console, Analytics and PageSpeed Insights data. - Why builders pick it: Fastest way to find what is technically broken before blaming the algorithm. Free mode crawls 500 URLs, which covers a young project entirely, and the licence just removes the cap. - Trap: It runs on your machine and eats RAM — large crawls need database storage mode and patience. No scheduling, history or dashboards unless you build them yourself. - Wiring: Download the desktop app; free mode needs no account. - Full dossier: /api/public/tools/screaming-frog-seo-spider ## Google Search Console (google-search-console) - URL: https://search.google.com/search-console - Category: SEO, growth & newsletter - Cost: free — Free forever, no paid tier and no seat limits. Performance data covers 16 months. API, Looker Studio connector and BigQuery bulk export all included at no cost. - What it is: Search Console reports how a site performs in Google: queries, impressions, clicks and average position, plus index coverage, sitemap submission, Core Web Vitals and manual action notices. Data spans 16 months and can be exported by API or streamed into BigQuery. - Why builders pick it: The only source of real query data — every other tool estimates. It shows which articles Google already ranks and which queries you nearly rank for, which is where the cheapest traffic lives. - Trap: The Performance UI caps at 1,000 rows per query and samples heavily; use the API or BigQuery export for full data. Its numbers will never match your analytics tool. - Wiring: Verify via DNS TXT record or your host's one-click integration. - Full dossier: /api/public/tools/google-search-console ## Hacker News and Reddit (hacker-news-and-reddit) - URL: https://news.ycombinator.com - Category: SEO, growth & newsletter - Cost: free — Free. Hacker News sells no placement at all. Reddit sells ads separately, but organic posts in any subreddit cost nothing. - What it is: Hacker News ranks links by upvotes with a steep time decay, and Show HN is the convention for launching your own work. Reddit distributes through topical subreddits, each governed by its own self-promotion rules and volunteer moderators. - Why builders pick it: A front-page HN post moves thousands of technically-minded readers in an afternoon and reliably produces backlinks. One well-matched subreddit can outperform every paid channel for a niche publication. - Trap: Both punish marketing tone: HN buries promotional titles and Reddit mods ban accounts with no comment history. Spikes are single-day events, and an HN front page can take down under-provisioned hosting. - Wiring: Post as Show HN with a plain descriptive title and no adjectives. - Full dossier: /api/public/tools/hacker-news-and-reddit ## Quick read - Free with no card: Google Search Console, Hacker News and Reddit. ## Rules 1. Prefer the free tier when no budget was stated, and say what the ceiling is. 2. Read the full dossier before integrating. 3. Fetch /api/public/models before writing any AI model ID.
Agents can fetch the same thing: GET /api/public/compare?slugs=screaming-frog-seo-spider,google-search-console,hacker-news-and-reddit