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SpiderHead vs advertools

Both are free, MIT-licensed and run on your machine. advertools is a Python library: its crawler writes page data for you to analyze in pandas. SpiderHead ships the analysis too: 280 audit checks, reports, a desktop app and an MCP server.

Checked 21 October 2026 against each vendor's own public pages. Sources below.

SpiderHead

Open-source crawler and audit toolkit

Free and open source; no paid tierRuns on your machine

advertools

Python library with a Scrapy-based SEO crawler

Free, MIT licence; no paid tierRuns on your machine

Compatibility at a glance

SpiderHead scores 71 on coverage and 83 on automation; advertools scores 21 and 25. Both out of 100, counted from the table.

Out of 24 capabilities we compare for every tool.

12both have
12only SpiderHead
0only advertools

Market map

Crawl, audit and data coverage / Automation and AI agents: SpiderHead 71·83, Screaming Frog 92·75, Sitebulb 88·58, Ahrefs Site Audit 75·75, Semrush Site Audit 63·75, SEOnaut 8·25, LibreCrawl 29·50, advertools 21·2500252550507575100100Crawl, audit and data coverage →Automation and AI agents →SpiderHeadScreaming FrogSitebulbAhrefs Site AuditSemrush Site AuditSEOnautLLibreCrawlAadvertools
Scores are counted from the table: yes = 1, partly = ½, no or not found in public docs = 0, as a share of the rows on each axis. Horizontal: Crawl, audit and data coverage (12 rows). Vertical: Automation and AI agents (6 rows). Hover or focus a marker for the breakdown; click to keep it open.

Coverage by group

Share of rows each tool covers in a group, 0–100, counted from the table below.

100Price and setup5 rows100
100Interfaces2 rows0
75AI agents and integrations2 rows25
67Crawl3 rows33
80Audit5 rows20
63Data sources4 rows13
100Reports and follow-up3 rows33
83Overall24 rows38

Using both

There is no direct integration. advertools writes JSON Lines and parquet files for your own analysis; SpiderHead does not read that format natively.

Side by side

CapabilitySpiderHeadadvertools
Price and setup
Free to useYes: Free and open source; no paid tierYes: Free, MIT licence; no paid tier
Open sourceYes: Core MIT; Desktop GPL-3.0-or-later (PyQt5)Yes: Yes, MIT licence
Runs on your machineYes: Crawl and storage run on your machineYes: Runs in your own Python environment
Works without an accountYes: No account; no hosted serviceYes: None for crawling (some SERP APIs need own keys)
Free tierYes: No licence cap; default crawl cap 200 URLsYes: No limits; free library
Interfaces
Desktop appYes: PyQt5 app: macOS, Windows, LinuxNo: Python library, no native app
Command lineYes: seohead CLI, 230 commandsNot found in public docs: No CLI documented; used from Python
AI agents and integrations
MCP server for AI agentsYes: Local stdio server, 246 toolsNot found in public docs: Not found in public docs
APIPartly: Python API; optional self-hosted job APIPartly: Python API; no hosted web API
Crawl
JavaScript renderingPartly: Optional Playwright extra; raw HTML by defaultNo: Not built in; scrapy-playwright mentioned
Scheduled crawlsPartly: Writes launchd/cron/Task Scheduler trigger; no daemonNo: No built-in scheduler; run via your own cron
Custom extractionYes: Declarative extraction rules and content selectorsYes: CSS and XPath selectors via crawl()
Audit
Audit checksYes: 280 checks (generated registry, CHECKS.md)No: No fixed audit checklist; raw crawl data columns
HreflangYes: hreflang-check plus hreflang audit checksPartly: Extracts alternate/hreflang links; no audit report
Structured dataYes: schema-check/schema-build and Schema.org checksPartly: Extracts JSON-LD columns; no validation
Core Web Vitals / LighthousePartly: Lab render-check, CrUX field data; Lighthouse JSON suppliedNo: Not documented for the crawler
AccessibilityPartly: Static a11y checks only (lang, labels, alt)No: Not documented
Data sources
Google Search ConsoleYes: Search Console via provider (OAuth/service account)Not found in public docs: Not found in public docs
Google Analytics 4Partly: Landing pages and page views via provider callsNot found in public docs: Not found in public docs
Backlink dataPartly: Donor-list verification and CSV import; no own indexNo: No backlink data in the crawler
Keyword dataPartly: Via external providers (Wordstat, Arsenkin, DataForSEO)Partly: SERP functions for Google and YouTube (own API keys)
Reports and follow-up
Report exportsYes: XLSX, DOCX, CSV, Markdown, JSON, PDF overviewPartly: JSON Lines output; parquet conversion; pandas
Task list and fix recheckYes: Task backlog, verify-fixes, remediation ledgerPartly: compare() diffs two crawls; no task tracking
Reads Screaming Frog exportsYes: Screaming Frog CSV/XLSX export analysisNo: Not documented
yespartlynonot found in public docs

Where each one is stronger

SpiderHead

  • A ready audit: 280 checks with evidence and a fix for each, no analysis code to write.
  • A desktop app, a CLI and a local MCP server with 246 tools.
  • Report exports and a task backlog with fix rechecks.
  • JavaScript rendering through an optional Playwright extra.

advertools

  • Fully scriptable in Python with every Scrapy setting exposed, so crawl behavior is highly customisable
  • Crawl output is tidy tabular data for pandas, including large crawls through parquet conversion
  • Also covers sitemap and robots.txt downloads, log-file parsing and SERP API helpers in one package
  • Free MIT-licensed code with no URL limits or account

Questions

Is advertools an audit tool with reports?
No fixed audit checklist is published. It extracts page elements into data tables, and the analysis is done by the user in pandas; a few helpers cover links, images, redirects and crawl comparison.
Does it render JavaScript?
Not natively. The docs mention third-party Scrapy plugins such as scrapy-playwright as an option.
What is the latest version?
0.18.0, uploaded to PyPI on 2026-06-17.

How we compared

  • Every cell comes from the vendor's own public pages (product, documentation, pricing, release notes, repository) on 21 October 2026.
  • “Not found in public docs” means we could not confirm it from an official source, not that the feature is missing. Charts count it as 0.
  • Prices and plans change. Check the vendor's pricing page before you buy.
  • Spotted something out of date? Tell us and we will correct it.

Sources

advertools is a trademark of advertools project (open source). Names and icons identify the products compared; SpiderHead is not affiliated with, endorsed or sponsored by advertools project (open source). Owners can ask us to remove an icon via contact.

More advertools comparisons

Screaming Frog vs advertoolsPython library with a Scrapy-based SEO crawlerSitebulb vs advertoolsPython library with a Scrapy-based SEO crawlerAhrefs Site Audit vs advertoolsPython library with a Scrapy-based SEO crawlerSemrush Site Audit vs advertoolsPython library with a Scrapy-based SEO crawlerSEOnaut vs advertoolsPython library with a Scrapy-based SEO crawlerLibreCrawl vs advertoolsPython library with a Scrapy-based SEO crawlerAll tools, one table8 SEO crawlers and audit tools

Try SpiderHead on your own site

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