Compare ScanGov with other tools
How ScanGov compares with Siteimprove, Lighthouse, and other paid and free tools on what they check, what they cost, who can see the results, and what you can show a board or auditor.
Start with the five questions an executive asks. Pick a concern to see the one-line answer for each tool. Open the detail table for the full capability list by indicator.
| Question | ScanGov | Siteimprove | Lighthouse |
|---|---|---|---|
| If a compliance deadline is the concern | Every page, every indicator, on a schedule, with a dated record of what changed and when. | Siteimprove covers WCAG, PDF, and authenticated pages. ScanGov adds a public record of where every site stands and the checks Siteimprove leaves out. | Lighthouse grades one page at a time and keeps nothing. ScanGov runs the same checks across every page and keeps the record a deadline requires. |
| If budget is the concern | Published prices from $50 a month. The top plan is $12,000 a year. | Siteimprove contracts for public bodies run from $25,000 a year. ScanGov's top plan is $12,000 a year, published, and does not require a quote. | Lighthouse is free, and ScanGov uses it. What you pay ScanGov for is the whole site, the schedule, the history, and the scorecard. |
| If public scrutiny is the concern | A public scorecard for every domain, so you see your grade before anyone else does. | Siteimprove results stay inside the account. A ScanGov scorecard shows what anyone with a browser can already find. | Anyone can run Lighthouse on your homepage. ScanGov shows you the same grade before they do, for every page. |
| If vendor accountability is the concern | A neutral, public, monthly record you can write into a contract and check without asking the vendor. | Siteimprove reports are yours alone. A ScanGov scorecard is a neutral record you can put in a vendor contract. | A Lighthouse score in a contract is one page, one day, one laptop. A ScanGov scorecard is every page, every month, in public. |
| What it checksThe scope of what the tool looks at. | Accessibility, security headers, usability and Core Web Vitals, readability, and whether AI tools and search engines can read the site. Every page, against 103 open standards. More | Accessibility, search visibility, analytics, and content, sold as separate modules. Marketed against WCAG, ADA Title II, Section 508, and the 21st Century IDEA Act.[1] | Performance, accessibility, best practices, and SEO for one page at a time, including HTTPS, HSTS, CSP, robots.txt validity, and structured data.[1] |
| What it costsWhether the price is public and what buyers report paying. | Public. $50 to $1,000 a month, by number of domains and page scans. No quote needed. More | By quote. Buyers report $15,000 to $40,000 a year for small organizations and $25,000 to $100,000 or more for government and higher education, plus onboarding fees.[4] | Free and open source.[1] |
| Who can see the resultsWhether results are private to the account or public. | Public by default. Every scanned domain has a scorecard anyone can open, and your team's full dashboard is private to your account. More | Private to the account. We found no public scorecard or public report option.[1] | A report on your screen. Nothing is stored or published unless you save it.[1] |
| Do you have to switchWhether it replaces what you have or runs next to it. | No. ScanGov runs next to whatever you use today and covers checks most suites leave out. More | Siteimprove is usually the tool already in place. ScanGov adds the checks Siteimprove does not list and does not require dropping it.[1] | Nothing to switch. ScanGov runs Lighthouse as part of its own scan, across every page, on a schedule.[1] |
| What you can show a board or auditorThe record it leaves behind. | A dated history of every score change, a public scorecard, and a trend line for every indicator. More | Dashboards and reports inside the platform. Siteimprove's federal platform is FedRAMP Ready, which ScanGov is not.[1] | A one-page snapshot. There is no history, no site-wide grade, and no comparison population.[1] |
Bracketed numbers link to the source and the date we checked it on each tool's page. ScanGov's column links to the feature or plan it describes.
Compare in detail
Every tool answers the same capability rows. Use the tabs to show one indicator at a time.
| Capability | ScanGov | Siteimprove | Lighthouse |
|---|---|---|---|
| Platform | |||
| Scans the whole site on a schedule | Yes Every page in your sitemap, on a schedule, with on-demand rescans. More | Yes Crawls the whole site on a recurring schedule.[6] | No One URL per run. The CLI can be scripted, but you build and host the loop.[1] |
| Keeps a history of scores over time | Yes Pulse trend lines and a dated changelog for every indicator. More | Not confirmed Trend reporting is not described on the pages we checked. | No No. Each run is a fresh report.[1] |
| Scoped views for a team or section | Yes Filters by site, topic, and URL path, with members attached. More | Not confirmed Role-based views are mentioned, but not how they are scoped.[2] | Not applicable Not applicable. There are no accounts. |
| Single sign-on | Partly Okta through OpenID Connect (OIDC) on Business and Enterprise plans. Microsoft Entra ID is not supported yet. More | Not confirmed Not described on the pages we checked. | Not applicable Not applicable. There are no accounts. |
| Scans pages behind a login | No No. ScanGov scans public pages only. | Yes Covers internal and authenticated pages.[2] | Yes Yes, from DevTools on any page you are signed in to.[1] |
| Checks every deploy before it goes live | Yes A free GitHub Action audits your site on every deploy. More | Partly CI/CD and an MCP server for VS Code and Claude Code are listed. We did not confirm a deploy gate.[2] | Partly The Node module and CLI can run in CI. You write the thresholds and the workflow.[1] |
| Sends issues to GitHub or a ticket system | Yes GitHub integration, pre-filled issue reports, and CSV, JSON, or Markdown export. More | Yes Jira connector and Azure DevOps. No GitHub integration is listed.[3] | No No. Findings stay in the report. |
| Public scorecard and peer rankings | Yes A public scorecard for every domain and rankings against peers on scangov.org. More | No Results stay inside the platform. No public scorecard or peer ranking.[1] | No No. There is no comparison population. |
| Open, published standards with fix guidance | Yes 103 published standards, each with guidance on how to fix it. More | No Checks are proprietary. Guidance lives inside the product and help center.[6] | Yes Open source, with a public description for every audit.[1] |
| Public pricing and self-serve signup | Yes Four plans from $50 a month. Pay and start scanning in minutes. More | No No public pricing. Every call to action is a demo request.[1] | Yes Free. Nothing to sign up for.[1] |
| Accessibility | |||
| Automated Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) checks | Yes Automated WCAG checks on every page, ranked by impact in the tasklist. More | Yes WCAG checks across the digital estate, with AI-generated fixes for WordPress and Drupal.[2] | Yes An accessibility category scored from automated checks.[1] |
| PDF accessibility | Yes PDF checks are included in the scan. | Yes PDF scanning and a PDF remediation agent that writes alt text.[2] | No No. Lighthouse audits HTML pages only. |
| Video captions and embed titles | Yes Captions on page videos and titles on embedded players. More | Not confirmed Not described on the pages we checked. | No Not audited. |
| Botability | |||
| Robots.txt, sitemap, canonical, and schema checks | Yes Robots.txt, sitemap, canonical tags, and schema on every page. More | Partly The Search module covers SEO visibility and answer engine optimization. We did not confirm robots.txt or sitemap checks.[1] | Partly Checks that robots.txt is valid and structured data parses. No sitemap or canonical check across the site.[1] |
| Content visible to crawlers that do not run JavaScript | Yes Reports whether a crawler that does not run JavaScript sees your content. | Not confirmed Not described on the pages we checked. | No No. Lighthouse runs JavaScript, so it cannot tell you what a crawler that does not run it sees. |
| AI crawler access and readiness | Yes Checks whether good bots, including AI crawlers, can reach the site. More | Partly Markets AI answer engine optimization. We did not confirm an AI crawler access check.[1] | No Not audited. |
| Security | |||
| Security headers on every page | Yes HTTPS, HSTS, Content Security Policy (CSP), and X-Content-Type-Options on every page. More | No Security is not among the modules listed.[1] | Partly Flags missing HTTPS, HSTS, and CSP on the audited page under best practices.[1] |
| Security.txt | Yes Checks for a valid security.txt. | No Not offered.[1] | No Not audited. |
| .gov domain check | Yes Flags government sites not on a .gov domain. | No Not offered.[1] | No Not audited. |
| Usability | |||
| Core Web Vitals, lab data | Yes Lab Core Web Vitals on every page, scored against the standards. More | Not confirmed Performance checks are not described on the pages we checked. | Yes Lab Core Web Vitals with detailed diagnostics. Deeper than ScanGov on a single page.[1] |
| Core Web Vitals, real-user field data | No No. ScanGov reports lab data only. | Not confirmed Not described on the pages we checked. | Yes Through PageSpeed Insights, which adds Chrome User Experience Report field data for LCP, INP, and CLS.[2] |
| Titles, descriptions, viewport, and social tags | Yes Titles, descriptions, viewport, and social sharing tags on every page. | Partly Covered by the Search module. We did not confirm the exact checks.[1] | Partly Title, meta description, and viewport under SEO. No social sharing tags.[1] |
| Readability | |||
| Reading grade level per page | Yes Automated Readability Index and Flesch-Kincaid on every page. More | Not confirmed Readability scoring is not described on the pages we checked. | No Not audited.[1] |
| A reading level target for the site | Yes Set a reading level target per site. More | Not confirmed Not described on the pages we checked. | No Not audited. |
One-to-one comparisons
Each page carries the same two tables for one tool, with a summary, questions buyers ask, and every source.
ScanGov vs Siteimprove
Enterprise web governance platform with accessibility, search, analytics, and content modules.
Paid product. Checked 2026-10-28.
ScanGov vs Lighthouse
Free, open-source page audit built into Chrome, and the engine behind PageSpeed Insights.
Free tool. Checked 2026-10-28.
By indicator
The same tools, one indicator at a time.
Accessibility
Checks that find barriers for people with disabilities.
Botability
Whether AI tools and search engines can find and read your site.
Security
Security headers and practices on every page.
Usability
Core Web Vitals, titles, descriptions, and mobile settings.
Readability
Reading grade level against the plain language standard.
How we compare
- Every claim about another tool links to a public source with the date we checked it. We re-check each quarter.
- Where we could not confirm a capability, the cell says so. We do not fill gaps with guesses.
- Where another tool has something ScanGov does not, such as FedRAMP or authenticated scanning, the row says so.
- ScanGov runs next to your current tool. None of these pages ask you to drop one.
See how your own site scores first: find your public scorecard on scangov.org, or book a demo.
Frequently asked questions
Do I have to switch tools to use ScanGov?
No. ScanGov scans public pages and reports to its own dashboard, so it runs next to whatever you use today. Most teams add it for the checks their current tool leaves out and for the public scorecard.
How do you check what other tools do?
Every claim about another tool links to a public page from that vendor or a published pricing source, with the date we checked it. Where we could not confirm something, the cell says so instead of guessing. If you see an error, tell us and we will fix it and note the change.
Why does ScanGov compare itself with free tools?
Because they are what most small teams already use, and ScanGov runs Lighthouse as part of its own scan. The honest comparison is what a free tool gives you on one page today and what ScanGov adds across every page over time.