Alternatives to muffet
A fast command-line link checker, written in Go, that crawls a website to find broken links. The listings below can replace it for an important use case. Each note says what changes if you switch.
The original
muffet
A fast command-line link checker, written in Go, that crawls a website to find broken links.
Replacements
Listings that take over the same core job as muffet.
linkinator
A command-line broken link checker that crawls websites and local files to validate every link.
linkinator is also an open-source command-line link checker for CI, released under MIT, but needs Node.js unless run in Docker and can check local files.
LinkChecker
Open-source command-line tool that checks links in web pages or crawls whole websites for broken ones.
LinkChecker is a GPL command-line crawler written in Python with many output formats such as CSV, XML and SQL, and needs Python 3.10 or later.
htmltest
Command-line tool that tests generated static HTML for broken links, missing images and markup problems.
htmltest is a single Go program for CI like muffet, but it checks generated static HTML files instead of crawling a live website.
HTMLProofer
A Ruby tool that tests rendered HTML files for broken links, images and markup problems.
HTMLProofer checks rendered local HTML files rather than crawling live sites, and needs a Ruby environment, which suits static site builds in CI.
W3C Link Checker
An online W3C tool that finds broken links and anchors on a web page or whole site.
W3C Link Checker runs as an online tool instead of a local binary, checks anchors as well as URLs, and offers configurable recursive crawling depth.
Integrity
A free native Mac app that crawls a website and reports broken links.
Integrity is a native macOS app with a graphical interface for crawling sites for broken links, but it is closed source and export features need a paid version.
Broken Link Check
Free online dead link checker for whole websites or single pages, with no sign-up.
Broken Link Check runs in the browser with no install or sign-up, shows where broken links sit in the HTML, and limits the free version to 3,000 pages.
Dead Link Checker
Online broken link checker that crawls a website or single page and reports dead links.
Dead Link Checker is a hosted freemium service with scheduled emailed reports and multi-site runs, though automated checking is paid and needs an account.
Similar software
Related functionality, not a direct replacement.
SiteOne Crawler
Open-source website crawler that produces audit reports, offline mirrors and Markdown exports of a site.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider
A desktop website crawler for Windows, macOS and Linux that audits sites for technical SEO issues.
Siteliner
An online scanner that finds duplicate content, broken links and internal linking issues across a website.
Dr. Link Check
Online crawler that checks a website for broken links, bad SSL certificates and malicious links.
Nu Html Checker
The W3C's online checker that tests HTML documents against current HTML conformance rules.
Unlighthouse
Open-source command-line tool that runs Google Lighthouse on every page of a site in parallel.
