SEO tools for developers
SEO tools for developers, sorted by where they run.
A developer picks tools by where they fit: the browser, a terminal, the codebase. Here are six, sorted that way, with the price and who each one is wrong for.
Prices read off each vendor's own site on 2026-10-03
Side by side
Six tools, five places they run.
Most of these do one job well. What separates them is where the data comes from: the page itself, a crawl, a third-party index, or your own Search Console.
| Tool | Where it runs | What it does | Price | Wrong for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lighthouse | Chrome DevTools, a CLI, a Node module, or PageSpeed Insights. | Audits one page for performance, accessibility and SEO basics. | Free and open source. | Anyone asking which searches to win. It checks a page, not your rankings. |
| Screaming Frog | A desktop app on Windows, macOS and Linux. | Crawls your whole site for broken links, redirects, titles and canonicals. | Free up to 500 URLs. $279/yr for unlimited. | Telling which of those issues cost you traffic. It reads the site, not your search data. |
| Ahrefs Webmaster Tools | A web app, on sites you verify. | A site audit plus the backlinks and keywords Ahrefs' own index sees for you. | Free, with crawl and row limits. | A team that wants its real clicks and positions rather than a third-party index. |
| Search Console API | Your own code. | Your real clicks, impressions and positions as raw rows. | Free. 25,000 rows a request, 1,200 queries a minute, 16 months of history. | Anyone who does not want to build the store, the daily diff and the decision on top. |
| SEO Gets | A web app. | Search Console and GA4 dashboards across many sites. | Free plan. Core $59/mo, unlimited sites. | A team that wants the next change to make rather than another chart. |
| QueryScope | An MCP server inside Claude Code, Cursor, Cline or Windsurf. | Reads your repo and your Search Console, hands your agent one change at a time, and measures it. | $49/mo for 1 site, $99 for 3, $149 for 10. Nothing metered. | Teams without a repo, anyone who wants content written, and backlink research. |
Read from each vendor's own site on 2026-10-03. Search Console API figures from Google's published quotas.
Where do you want the answer to show up?
You want to know if one page is built right.
Lighthouse. Run it from DevTools while you build, or from the CLI in CI so a regression fails the build.
You want every broken link and missing tag on the site.
Screaming Frog. It crawls the way a search engine does, and the free version covers a site under 500 URLs.
You want backlinks, or charts across many sites.
Ahrefs Webmaster Tools for backlinks, free on sites you verify. SEO Gets for Search Console dashboards across many sites.
SEO Gets compared with QueryScopeYou want the raw rows and you will build the rest.
The Search Console API. The rows are free. The time goes on what comes after: a store past the 16-month wall, a diff Google has no endpoint for, and a decision about which page to open first.
The real Search Console API limitsYour site is a codebase and you want to know what to change next.
QueryScope. Your agent reads the repo to work out what the site sells, QueryScope sizes the searches its buyers type, and hands back one change at a time. Anything a visitor reads waits for your commit, and every change is measured from the day Google recrawls the page.
How the MCP server worksOn a live site
The plan board, on a SaaS we run ourselves.
AppScreenshotStudio's declared searches, read from production: where each one stands and whether it moved.
How the plan is doing
21 May to 25 Sep · arrows are places moved, up is better
On page 1
where clicks happen · was 0 on 21 May
Below page 1
ranking, earning almost nothing · was 2 on 21 May
Not ranking
no reading on 10+ impressions · was 55 on 21 May
Coverage
<1%The whole site earned 528 clicks in 28 days, most of it on searches this plan never claimed.
On page 1
figma app store screenshot template
#9.9
▲3
320/mo
Demand
38
Impressions
2
Clicks
If your IDE is where you work, try it on one site.
Add the server to your IDE with the line below, then authorize Search Console in the browser that opens.
claude mcp add --transport http queryscope https://mcp.queryscope.dev/mcpWorks the same in Cursor, Cline and Windsurf. Your IDE opens a browser once to authorize.
Then ask: “what should this site go after?”
FAQ
SEO tools for developers: common questions.
What is the best SEO tool for developers?
The one that runs where you already work. Lighthouse for checking a page as you build it, Screaming Frog for crawling the whole site, the Search Console API if you want raw rows, and QueryScope if you want your coding agent to know what to change next.
Is there an AI SEO tool for developers?
Several now ship an MCP server, so Claude Code or Cursor can query their data. The difference is what comes back. Most hand your agent data to query. QueryScope hands it one decided change, on your own Search Console data, and the change waits for your commit if a visitor would read it.
Can ChatGPT do an SEO audit?
It can review a page you give it: titles, headings, structured data, how clearly the copy answers a search. It cannot see your real clicks, impressions or positions, so it cannot tell you which fix is worth the most. That needs your Search Console data, which a tool connected over MCP can bring in.
Can a developer do SEO for free?
Yes, for most of the checking. Search Console, Lighthouse and the Search Console API are free, Screaming Frog is free under 500 URLs, and Ahrefs Webmaster Tools is free on sites you verify. What you pay for is the deciding: which search to go after, which page to change, and whether it worked.
Is QueryScope connected to any of these companies?
No. QueryScope is independent and not affiliated with Google or any tool on this page. It reads your own Search Console over a read-only grant you approve and can revoke.
Know what to change next.
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