Screaming Frog SEO Spider review
Screaming Frog's local MCP server for SEO. What it can reach, what it costs and who should connect it.
Our verdict
For technical SEO it's the standout. The agent drives the crawler most SEOs already trust, and the data stays on your machine. You need the desktop app running and a licence, and the vendor says not every feature is supported yet.
Why it's on our list
Screaming Frog SEO Spider 24.0 ships a built-in MCP server that lets an AI assistant start, pause and monitor crawls, then pull reports and exports. It's here because your agent can run a fresh crawl itself instead of reading an old export.
Strengths
- Agent can start, pause and monitor crawls
- Crawl data stays on your machine
- Uses the crawler most SEOs already know
Watch out for
- Needs SEO Spider 24.0+ running locally, plus a licence
- Not every feature is supported yet, per the vendor
- Local only, so no cloud agents
Best for
- Technical SEO audits that need fresh crawl data
- SEOs who already own an SEO Spider licence
Pricing and access
Requires an installed SEO Spider v24.0 or later.
Setup steps differ by client. Follow Screaming Frog's setup docs for Claude, ChatGPT, Cursor or VS Code.