How to Build Your Own Screaming Frog
Replace Screaming Frog with a custom build. Website crawling and SEO auditing tool
Build Difficulty: 5/5
Build a working replacement in a weekend with AI tools
Estimated Timeline
Based on 39 features at Weekend Project difficulty, expect about One weekend with AI-assisted development.
Recommended Tech Stack
Full-stack React framework with API routes and server components
PostgreSQL database, auth, and real-time subscriptions
Utility-first styling for rapid UI development
Key Features to Replicate
Top features across 8 categories. See all 39 features
Analysis(12 features)
Audit images for missing or thin alt text and accessibility issues.
Validate canonical tags and identify self-referential or broken canonicals.
Identify duplicate content on your website using title, meta description, and content analysis.
Check heading hierarchy (H1-H6) compliance and identify missing headers.
Validate hreflang implementations for international and multi-language sites.
+7 more in this category
Auditing(5 features)
Check for WCAG accessibility violations and compliance issues.
Find and report all broken internal and external links across your website.
Monitor and categorize all HTTP status codes to identify server errors.
Discover and analyze redirect chains and loops that may impact SEO performance.
Check robots.txt file for syntax errors and validate crawling directives.
Configuration(5 features)
Handle cookie consent and manage session cookies during crawls.
Define crawl depth limits and URL patterns to control crawl scope.
Add custom HTTP headers to crawl requests for authentication and testing.
Configure how URL parameters are treated during crawling to avoid duplicate crawls.
Choose different user agents to crawl pages as desktop or mobile browsers.
Data(4 features)
Filter crawled URLs by various criteria including status, content type, and custom attributes.
Export all crawl data and reports in CSV format for further analysis.
Extract custom data using regex patterns and CSS selectors from crawled pages.
Create custom rules to filter and segment crawl data for specific analysis.
Performance(3 features)
Audit mobile-friendliness and responsive design issues across pages.
Measure and analyze page load times and identify performance bottlenecks.
Measure server response times for all crawled pages.
Automation(2 features)
Perform batch operations on crawled data including bulk find and replace.
Schedule automated crawls to run at specific times and frequencies.
Core(2 features)
Crawl large websites and complex JavaScript sites using cloud-based infrastructure.
Crawl websites to discover and analyze all pages, including internal and external links.
Reporting(2 features)
Automatically generate and email crawl reports on a recurring schedule.
View website structure and crawl data in interactive visual representations.
Cost Calculator
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Total Cost Comparison
DIY hosting estimate based on Vercel + Supabase free/pro tiers (~$20/mo). Build time estimated from 39 features at very easy complexity.