Crab vs LibreCrawl
Crab
crab.soLibreCrawl
librecrawl.comSide by side
| Figure | Crab | LibreCrawl |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | — | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| API | — | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · SEO Crawler Software | 8.2 (#12) | 8.5 (#7) |
| Spec score · SEO tools | 7.7 (#134) | 8.2 (#64) |
| Exports | Crab can generate a downloadable XML sitemap of crawled URLs. | It exports crawl data as CSV, JSON, or XML, with custom field selection and no stated export restrictions. |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Integrations | The maker's comparison page lists Google Analytics, Search Console, PageSpeed Insights, and other integrations as “Soon.” | The maker lists PageSpeed metrics and Playwright rendering; its API documentation describes REST endpoints for crawl control, settings, and exports. |
| JavaScript rendering | Crab can render JavaScript sites with headless Chrome, including React, Vue, and other single-page applications. | It uses Playwright to crawl JavaScript sites, including React, Vue, Angular, and Next.js, in headed or headless mode. |
| Open source | Crab is open-source software with source code available on GitHub. | LibreCrawl is MIT-licensed and can be self-hosted. |
| Site audit | Yes | Yes |
| Support | The homepage directs users with questions to GitHub. | The maker directs users to GitHub Issues for bug reports and feature requests, and GitHub Discussions for conversations. |
Plans
In their own words
LibreCrawl
LibreCrawl is a web-based SEO crawler for auditing and analyzing websites. It checks technical areas such as meta tags, schema markup, hreflang, social tags and PageSpeed metrics. Playwright rendering lets it crawl JavaScript sites built with React, Vue, Angular or Next.js, in headed or headless mode. The maker says memory profiling and virtual scrolling support stable crawls of more than one million URLs. Results can be exported as CSV, JSON or XML, with custom field selection and no stated export restrictions. LibreCrawl is MIT-licensed and can be self-hosted. Its REST API supports crawl control, settings and exports, and uses session-based authentication for every endpoint. Guest API users are limited to three crawls per 24 hours, tracked by IP address. The maker says the software does not track users, collect analytics or send crawl data back to itself, and encourages self-hosting for privacy. It is free, with no subscriptions or paid tiers. The maker directs bug reports and feature requests to GitHub Issues and discussions to GitHub Discussions.