Comparison · updated 27 September 2026

An Oncrawl alternative for log file analysis

CrawlGenius is an alternative to the log analysis part of Oncrawl. See which pages Googlebot visits, how often it comes back and which AI crawlers reach your site, and follow Googlebot activity by URL and page group, with 13 months of daily history on paid plans.

For one site with 10 million billable log lines a month, logs-only pricing is €175.73 a month, excluding VAT. Evaluate it alongside Oncrawl before deciding whether to switch.

Pick CrawlGenius

if log file analysis is the part of Oncrawl you need, and you want to see the price and start without a sales call.

Choose Oncrawl

if you want one platform that crawls millions of URLs with JavaScript rendering, reads IIS and JSON logs, brings in Search Console, GA4, Majestic and Piano data and offers live log monitoring, or if your procurement requires ISO 27001 or SOC 2.

Price

Oncrawl does not publish prices on its website; the most recent figure we found covers Oncrawl contracts in general, not log analysis alone (see the pricing section). CrawlGenius: a free plan, then €44.10 a month for logs only.

Oncrawl information checked on 27 September 2026 from the public sources listed at the bottom of this page. Spotted something outdated? Tell us and we will correct it.

What your team can investigate

• When does Googlebot come back to your key pages?

  Follow Googlebot visits and status changes by URL, day by day, and group pages by template with rules on the URL and the status code.

  URL inventory · Log analysis

• Which pages are crawled but never visited from search?

  The URL inventory lists pages Googlebot crawls that get no visit from Google search, next to crawl coverage, crawl freshness and time to first visit.

  URL inventory · Crawl freshness

• Which AI crawlers reach your site, and which can be verified?

  Activity by provider and intent (training, search, user-triggered), each AI crawler hit labeled verified or unverifiable, plus the visits AI assistants send you.

  AI crawler analysis

• Can your other tools use the data?

  CSV exports, a REST API, and an MCP server so an AI assistant such as Claude can query your logs. Team sharing is included on paid plans.

  MCP server · REST API

Evaluate CrawlGenius alongside Oncrawl

Use your own server logs to check whether CrawlGenius covers the work your team needs, before deciding anything.

1. Check your log format and collection method. WordPress plugin, server agent, Amazon S3 connector, file upload or an FTP account we set up for you. Apache, Nginx, Amazon CloudFront and AWS ALB logs are detected automatically. If your logs already land in an Amazon S3 bucket, give CrawlGenius read access to the same bucket.
2. Load the same period in both tools. Upload past log files, whatever their dates, up to 1 GB per file; send each day only once, since overlapping files are counted twice. Recreate your page-type segments with URL rules so both tools slice the site the same way.
3. Review differences in bot identification. Compare Googlebot totals day by day with Oncrawl, and the verified and unverifiable split of your AI crawler traffic, keeping the points below in mind.
4. Check the reports your team relies on. List the views your team uses every week and check that it can rebuild them.
5. Confirm the price for your billable volume. Use the pricing calculator, or ask us to confirm it, before deciding whether to switch. The free plan shows 7 days, so run the comparison during the guided trial or on a paid plan.

Oncrawl vs CrawlGenius at a glance

Show the detailed comparison, line by line

Criterion	Oncrawl	CrawlGenius
What it is	Technical SEO platform: crawler, log monitoring, AI Search Lens, data connectors; part of BrightEdge since 2022	Server log analysis for SEO and AI crawlers, with an optional crawler module
Log analysis	Log Analyzer, included in its Core and Scale plans, not in Basic, according to its terms of service. Connectors for Google Cloud Storage, Akamai and Azure Blob, data streams from AWS S3 or Google Cloud Storage, or upload over FTPS; its integrations page also lists Cloudflare. IIS, Nginx and Apache logs, and any server that provides JSON logs	The core product. WordPress plugin, server agent, Amazon S3 connector, file upload (also by script) or an FTP account we set up for you. Apache, Nginx, Amazon CloudFront and AWS ALB logs are detected automatically; other line formats can be configured
Data freshness	Live log monitoring: a minute-by-minute view of bot activity when logs are uploaded at least every hour, according to its help center (27 November 2025)	WordPress plugin and server agent: batches every 5 minutes by default. Amazon S3 connector: bucket checked every 15 minutes. Uploaded files: processed on arrival
Bot verification	Checks the requesting IP against the ranges published by Google, Bing, OpenAI, Perplexity, Mistral, CommonCrawl, Ibou, DuckDuckGo and Apple; other brands, including Claude, Meta and Amazon, are matched on the user agent alone, according to its supported bots list. Its setup guide also describes a reverse lookup for Googlebot	Googlebot: a Googlebot user agent and an IP address in Google-owned blocks, both required; those blocks include Google Cloud, so a fake Googlebot on a Google Cloud server passes. Crawlers from OpenAI, Perplexity, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon, and Google crawlers other than Googlebot (such as GoogleOther): checked against our copy of the more than 3,500 IP ranges those companies publish. Others, including ClaudeBot and Meta's crawlers: kept and labeled unverifiable. Hits sent by the server agent and older WordPress plugin versions carry shortened IP addresses, so their AI crawler hits are labeled unverifiable. No reverse DNS
AI crawlers	More than 30 entries in its AI search, AI user and AI training categories, from OpenAI, Anthropic, Google, Perplexity, Mistral, Amazon, Meta and others, plus referral visits from ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, Perplexity and Mistral, in its supported bots list	26 AI crawler signatures sorted by intent (training, search, user-triggered) and listed in the FAQ below, plus the visits sent by 12 AI assistants
AI citations	AI Search Lens (help center article of 6 February 2026): a funnel from indexation to citation to traffic, where citations are estimated from AI user bot visits in the logs	Not offered as a citation estimate: we show AI crawler activity by intent and the visits AI answers send you
Crawler	Crawls millions of URLs with full JavaScript rendering, Core Web Vitals, internal linking and indexing signals, hundreds of standard metrics and custom extraction	Optional module joined to your logs: JavaScript rendering, orphan pages, internal PageRank, canonical checks, hreflang URLs extracted
Search Console, Analytics	Search Console (stored beyond Google's standard retention limits) and GA4 on all plans; Majestic and Piano on Core and Scale plans, according to its terms of service	Search Console and Google Analytics connected with the crawler module
API	REST API with its OQL query language; available on all plans, according to its terms of service	REST API with session tokens (no long-lived API keys)
MCP server	MCP server with OAuth or API token	Included on paid plans, with OAuth or personal tokens
Price	Not published on its website; its main call to action is "Book a demo". Vendr: median $7,681 a year, low $4,997, high $8,819 (February 2026, not from Oncrawl), for Oncrawl contracts, not log analysis alone	Public: free plan, then from €49 a month; online checkout up to 10 million log lines a month
Getting started	Demo request ("Book a demo")	Free account with no credit card, or a guided 30-day trial on your own logs
Log data over time	Per day for the past 90 days, per week for 56 weeks, per month for 2 years, according to its help center	Googlebot activity per URL, day by day: 13 months on paid plans, 3 years as an option (+10%)
Certifications	States ISO 27001 certification and SOC 2 Type I and Type II compliance, no visitor IP storage and an EU data hosting option	None to date (no SOC 2, no ISO 27001)
Company	Founded in 2013, based in Bordeaux, France; part of BrightEdge since 2022	Small company based in Dordogne, France, founder-led; onboarding and support by the people who build the product, in French and English

Oncrawl column: public sources checked on 27 September 2026, listed at the bottom of this page. CrawlGenius column: the product as of September 2026. A feature listed in one column only does not mean the other tool lacks it.

Oncrawl pricing vs CrawlGenius pricing

Start from the cost you can actually remove. Check which charges in your current contract would disappear, which tools you would keep, when your commitment ends, and the setup work and overlap of running both tools for a while. The figures below give the CrawlGenius side, excluding VAT.

CrawlGenius prices are public: a free plan (10,000 log lines a month, one project, 7-day window, no credit card), then €44.10 a month for logs only, or €49 with the crawler module, each with 250,000 log lines a month and €13.50 per additional million on the per-project plans. Monthly with no commitment, or annual with 10% off. The figures below are what the pricing calculator shows.

A billable log line is a bot hit or a visit from Google search results, not every line of your raw file: most human page views are not billed, and raw volume is always higher than billable volume. Online checkout goes up to 10 million log lines a month; between 10 and 20 million we confirm the price with you, above 20 million it is a custom quote.

Public benchmarks give context, not your saving. Oncrawl does not publish prices on its website, and its main call to action is "Book a demo". Vendr, which aggregates purchase data, reports a median of $7,681 a year for Oncrawl contracts, with a low of $4,997 and a high of $8,819 on its benchmark (updated February 2026). These figures do not come from Oncrawl, Vendr does not publish how many contracts they are based on, and they cover Oncrawl contracts whatever products they include, not log analysis alone. Oncrawl's terms of service describe three plans (Basic, Core and Scale), all of which include its crawler: the Log Analyzer comes with Core and Scale only, and the API with every plan. The terms give no prices.

Oncrawl amounts are in US dollars, as their source publishes them; CrawlGenius prices are in euros, excluding VAT.

When CrawlGenius may be all you need

• Log monitoring is what you use. Oncrawl's plans all include its crawler, with the Log Analyzer in Core and Scale; if logs are what your team opens every week, a dedicated log analysis tool may be all you need.
• You want a budget before a sales call. Our prices are public, with a calculator for your own volumes.
• You want day-level detail to last. Oncrawl's help center (27 November 2025) shows log data per day for 90 days, then per week and per month; CrawlGenius keeps Googlebot activity per URL day by day for 13 months on paid plans, 3 years as an option.
• You run many sites. The Agency plan has no per-project fee for log analysis: from €149 a month for 500,000 log lines pooled across your sites.

When Oncrawl is the better choice

• A large crawler in the same platform. Millions of URLs with full JavaScript rendering, Core Web Vitals and custom extraction, next to logs, Search Console data kept beyond Google's standard retention limits, GA4, Majestic and Piano.
• A stricter Googlebot check. Oncrawl checks Googlebot against the IP lists Google publishes; CrawlGenius uses Google-owned network blocks, which also contain Google Cloud. Oncrawl also verifies CommonCrawl, DuckAssistBot and MistralAI-User by IP and recognizes DuckDuckBot, IbouBot and MistralAI-Index; CrawlGenius verifies Amazonbot and Amzn-SearchBot, which Oncrawl matches on the user agent alone.
• IIS, JSON, Cloudflare or cloud storage logs. Oncrawl documents all of these, with connectors for Akamai, Azure Blob and Google Cloud Storage; CrawlGenius reads Apache, Nginx, Amazon CloudFront and AWS ALB logs, and other line formats once configured.
• Minute-by-minute monitoring. A live view of bot activity, with logs uploaded at least every hour.
• A citation estimate. AI Search Lens estimates how often your pages could be cited in AI answers from AI user bot visits in your logs.
• A certification requirement. Oncrawl states it is ISO 27001 certified and SOC 2 Type I and Type II compliant; CrawlGenius holds no certification to date.
• An established vendor. Founded in 2013 and part of BrightEdge since 2022; its homepage displays a strip of brand logos, including Ticketmaster, Skyscanner, L'Oréal and Harrods.

Frequently asked questions

Can CrawlGenius replace Oncrawl completely?

Not if you use the whole platform. CrawlGenius can replace the log analysis part, apart from the differences listed on this page, such as IIS and JSON log formats, Cloudflare logs, live log monitoring and the Akamai, Azure and Google Cloud Storage connectors: it checks Googlebot hits by IP address, labels each AI crawler hit verified or unverifiable, follows what Googlebot does to every URL day by day, segments your site by page template, and offers a crawler module joined to your logs. It does not estimate AI citations, measure Core Web Vitals, or import Majestic or Piano data. If you use those every day, Oncrawl remains the right tool for them.

How does bot verification compare?

Both tools check IP addresses, not only user agents. Oncrawl's supported bots list says it checks the requesting IP against the ranges published by nine vendors (Google, Bing, OpenAI, Perplexity, Mistral, CommonCrawl, Ibou, DuckDuckGo and Apple) and matches other brands, including Claude, Meta and Amazon, on the user agent alone. Its setup guide also describes a reverse lookup to confirm Googlebot, on by default. Here is how CrawlGenius checks bots.

A Googlebot user agent counts only when it comes from an IP address block owned by Google; from any other network, the line is rejected at ingestion. Those blocks include Google Cloud, so this check does not catch a fake Googlebot running on a rented Google Cloud server: on Googlebot, Oncrawl's check against Google's published lists is stricter than ours. Crawlers from OpenAI, Perplexity, Microsoft, Apple and Amazon, and Google crawlers other than Googlebot (such as GoogleOther), are checked against our copy of the more than 3,500 IP ranges those companies publish, and a hit that claims one of them from outside its ranges is rejected. Hits that cannot be checked are kept and labeled unverifiable. We run no reverse DNS lookups.

Three limits. ClaudeBot is labeled unverifiable today: Anthropic's ranges appear in our public registry at bots.crawlgenius.com, but we keep them in observation and do not use them to verify hits. AI crawler verification needs the full client IP: files sent by upload, Amazon S3 or FTP carry it, while the server agent and older versions of the WordPress plugin send shortened IP addresses, so their AI crawler hits are labeled unverifiable. And we check against our copy of the published lists, which we refresh from the source files: a genuine hit from a range published after our last refresh can be rejected as if it were spoofed.

Which AI crawlers does CrawlGenius track?

26 AI crawler signatures, grouped by intent. Training crawlers (14): GPTBot, ClaudeBot, GoogleOther, Amazonbot, meta-externalagent, Bytespider, CCBot, cohere-ai, Diffbot, xAI-Grok, GrokBot, ImagesiftBot, Timpibot and Omgilibot. Search crawlers (5): OAI-SearchBot, Claude-SearchBot, PerplexityBot, Grok-DeepSearch and YouBot. User-triggered fetchers (7): ChatGPT-User, Claude-User, Perplexity-User, Google-CloudVertexBot, meta-externalfetcher, MistralAI-User and DuckAssistBot. Bingbot and Applebot are tracked as search engine crawlers. Separately, we count the human visits sent by 12 AI assistants, including ChatGPT, Perplexity, Gemini, Copilot and Claude.

How much does Oncrawl cost?

Oncrawl does not publish prices on its website, and its main call to action is "Book a demo". Vendr, which aggregates purchase data, reports a median of $7,681 a year for Oncrawl contracts, with a low of $4,997 and a high of $8,819 on its benchmark (February 2026). These figures do not come from Oncrawl, Vendr does not publish how many contracts they are based on, and they cover Oncrawl contracts whatever products they include, not log analysis alone. Oncrawl's terms of service describe three plans (Basic, Core and Scale), with the Log Analyzer in Core and Scale only, and give no prices.

How do CrawlGenius prices compare with Oncrawl's for log file analysis?

CrawlGenius prices are public: a free plan, then from €49 a month. One site with 10 million log lines a month costs €175.73 a month for logs only (€1,897.83 a year on annual billing), or €248.13 a month with a crawler module that crawls 1 million URLs a month. Oncrawl does not publish its prices; Vendr reports a median of $7,681 a year for Oncrawl contracts (a figure that does not come from Oncrawl), which cover Oncrawl contracts whatever products they include, with or without log analysis. To compare like for like, put your own Oncrawl invoice next to the pricing calculator set to your volumes.

Can CrawlGenius read my IIS, JSON or CDN logs?

Apache, Nginx, Amazon CloudFront and AWS Application Load Balancer logs are detected automatically. There is no native parser for IIS, Cloudflare Logpush or Fastly logs, and JSON logs work only when their keys match our fields; other line formats can be configured, so send us a sample before you plan on it.

Can I run CrawlGenius alongside Oncrawl?

Yes. CrawlGenius works from your raw server logs and needs nothing from Oncrawl. You can run both side by side during an evaluation month, or keep Oncrawl's crawler and rely on CrawlGenius for the logs.

Is CrawlGenius SOC 2 or ISO 27001 certified?

No, not to date. Oncrawl states that it is ISO 27001 certified and SOC 2 Type I and Type II compliant, so if a certification is a hard requirement of your procurement, Oncrawl is ahead on that point.

Who is behind CrawlGenius?

CrawlGenius is published by CRAWLGENIUS, a company based in Vergt, Dordogne, France, founded by Quentin Adt, an SEO consultant with a technical background. The platform has more than four years of history on its longest-running site, and its largest customer sends about 200 million raw log lines a month. Onboarding and support come from the people who build the product, in French and English. More on our about page.

Sources

Show the 19 public sources, as they read on 27 September 2026

1. Oncrawl, homepage
2. Oncrawl, Our story
3. Oncrawl, Log Analyzer
4. Oncrawl Help Center, Log Monitoring Setup Step-by-step (27 November 2025)
5. Oncrawl Help Center, Log Analyzer supported bots list (updated September 2026)
6. Oncrawl Help Center, How often should I upload new log files (27 November 2025)
7. Oncrawl Help Center, AI Search Lens (6 February 2026)
8. Oncrawl, Crawler
9. Oncrawl, Integrations
10. Oncrawl Developer Portal
11. Oncrawl Help Center, Getting started with the Oncrawl API
12. Oncrawl Help Center, Introduction to the Oncrawl MCP server
13. Oncrawl Help Center, Log monitoring date ranges (27 November 2025)
14. Oncrawl, Security
15. Oncrawl, www.oncrawl.com/pricing/ (page not found on 27 September 2026)
16. Oncrawl, Terms of service (updated 2 September 2026)
17. Vendr, Oncrawl pricing (updated February 2026)
18. BrightEdge press release, acquisition of Oncrawl (23 February 2022)
19. CrawlGenius, public registry of crawler IP ranges

Oncrawl is a trademark of its owner. CrawlGenius is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Oncrawl or BrightEdge. Information about Oncrawl comes from the public sources above, as they read on 27 September 2026, and may have changed since. CrawlGenius features and prices are current as of September 2026. Other product and company names belong to their respective owners.