Lighthouse
Google's built-in audit for performance, accessibility, SEO and best practices.
What it is
Lighthouse ships inside Chrome DevTools and as a CLI and Node module, auditing a page for performance, accessibility (via axe-core), SEO and progressive-web-app criteria. Lighthouse CI adds assertions and historical tracking so a build can fail when a score regresses.
Best for
Where it is strong
- Already installed in every Chrome browser — zero adoption cost.
- Covers performance, accessibility and SEO in one report.
- Lighthouse CI turns scores into enforceable build assertions.
Where it falls short
- Lab data from a synthetic environment, not what real users experience.
- Scores vary run to run, which makes strict thresholds frustrating.
- Accessibility coverage is the axe-core subset, not a full audit.
Pricing
Free and open source
Open sourceFree tier: Everything, self-hosted
What drives the bill: Free and open source. You pay in engineering time and CI minutes.
Check current pricing on Google’s siteFigures are indicative and were last reviewed August 2026. Vendors change pricing often; confirm before you commit.
Works with
What people who use Lighthouse say
No reviews of Lighthouse yet. If you have used it in anger, yours would be the first.
Alternatives to Lighthouse
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