If you've heard of Google Lighthouse, you might be wondering how it compares to AuditCrow. Both can help you check your website - but they're built for different people. Here's what each one does and when to use which.
First, the honest version
Lighthouse is free, made by Google, and gives developers deeper raw metrics than AuditCrow does - full Core Web Vitals diagnostics, best-practice checks, and the ability to re-run instantly while debugging. AuditCrow's free scan audits one page at a time - the taster for the full platform, which audits sites as a whole and is in beta. If you're a developer chasing a specific performance problem, use Lighthouse; it is the industry standard for that.
AuditCrow's job is the step Lighthouse leaves to you: turning technical findings into a prioritised, plain-English action list a non-developer can use, plus AI-readiness and trust checks (like email authentication) that Lighthouse doesn't cover. You can read a real, unedited AuditCrow report and compare it with your last Lighthouse run.
What is Google Lighthouse?
Lighthouse is a free tool from Google that runs inside the Chrome browser (in a section called DevTools) or from the command line. It measures your page's performance (speed), accessibility, SEO, and best practices. In other words: it tells you how fast your page loads, how usable it is for people with disabilities, and how well it's set up for search engines. It's the industry standard - but it's built for developers. The report is full of technical terms and scores. If you're a business owner or marketer, you might find it hard to turn that into a simple to-do list.
What You Get From Lighthouse
You open your page in Chrome, run an audit, and get a report with scores for Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices, and SEO. Each section lists passed and failed checks with links to documentation. The output is accurate and authoritative - but it's technical. Terms like "Largest Contentful Paint", "Cumulative Layout Shift", and "ARIA" are second nature to developers and confusing to everyone else.
Lighthouse also runs on your own machine: you're auditing the page as your browser loads it. That's great for debugging, but the results live in your browser tab rather than a report someone else can read.
What AuditCrow Does Differently
AuditCrow runs the scan on our side and delivers a prioritised, plain-language report. We check similar areas - structure, SEO, speed, accessibility, trust, content, AI readiness, and enquiry & conversion - but we explain each issue in business-friendly terms and assign a difficulty rating (easy, medium, hard) so you know where to start. You get:
- Plain-English findings with the "why it matters" spelled out - see a full example.
- A ready-to-send note for your developer on every fix, so acting on the report needs no translation.
- No install - you enter a URL in your browser and get the report. No DevTools, no command line.
We don't replace Lighthouse under the hood for every metric; we focus on turning technical findings into actionable next steps. If you want the raw numbers and full Lighthouse breakdown, run Lighthouse. If you want "here's what's wrong, why it matters, and how hard it is to fix" in plain English, run AuditCrow. That's our USP: we make the technical stuff easy to understand.
And the full platform? Lighthouse audits one page in your browser, once. The AuditCrow platform (in beta) audits your site as a whole and keeps doing it - weekly refresh, monthly full re-audit, uptime monitoring - with your real Search Console and Analytics data connected and six specialist AI analysts turning it into a goal-steered action plan. Different job entirely: Lighthouse is the developer's measuring tool; the platform is the owner's steering wheel. The waitlist gets first access.
When to Use Lighthouse
- You're a developer and you want precise metrics (Core Web Vitals, PWA checks, etc.).
- You're debugging a specific issue and need to re-run the audit as you make changes.
- You're comfortable with Chrome DevTools and technical documentation.
When to Use AuditCrow
- You're a business owner or marketer and you want a report you can read and act on (or hand to a developer).
- You want prioritised issues and plain-language explanations, not raw audit IDs.
- You want checks Lighthouse doesn't run: AI readiness and trust signals like email authentication.
Can You Use Both?
Yes. Many teams run Lighthouse for deep technical work and use AuditCrow for a quick health check or client-facing summary. Run a free scan and see how the report compares to your last Lighthouse run. For more on how we structure our checks, read our methodology or how to read a website audit report. Comparing other tools too? See how we stack up against Screaming Frog, SEOptimer, and SEMrush Site Audit.