# Skald vs JetOctopus: *a crawler beside the bot lines, or every line of the log* > The page https://skaldanalytics.com/compare/jetoctopus/ as Markdown. Every page and guide: https://skaldanalytics.com/llms.txt . Skald is source-available (Elastic License 2.0). Compare · JetOctopus Skald vs JetOctopus compares two tools that read the same server log for different jobs. JetOctopus crawls your site and keeps the search and AI bot lines, for technical SEO on large sites. Skald keeps every line, people included, checks the crawlers of nine owners, and follows visits to leads. *JetOctopus* is a technical SEO platform for large websites: a cloud crawler that renders JavaScript, a log analyzer for Googlebot and AI bots, and Search Console and GA4 joined by page. Skald reads your server's access log, sorts every request into five groups that add up to the log, and counts people from the same log. Other tools are on [the Skald comparisons page](https://skaldanalytics.com/compare/). Every claim about JetOctopus below links to its own page, read on 26 October 2026. [Start your 30-day free trial](https://skaldanalytics.com/beta/?choice=trial#signup) [Open the live demo](https://spcaeo.github.io/skald/) 30-day free trial · no card · we set it up within one working day · free to self-host - Skald vs JetOctopus, question by… - Which log lines each one keeps, and… - Where JetOctopus does more than Skald - JetOctopus for the crawl, Skald for… - JetOctopus, Skald, or both echo sounder · one sample site, seven pages, one week switch it 1. `/`143 9 40** 2. `/pricing/`66 2 22*2 leads*** 3. `/shoes/`91 5 18** 4. `/shoes/red/`51 3 9** 5. `/shoes/red/42/`10 1 2** 6. `/blog/2019/old/`00 0 3** 7. `/docs/setup/`34 1 7** JetOctopus crawls the site, so it knows how deep each page sits. Its log analyzer counts the checked Googlebot and AI bot hits. People come from GA4's organic traffic by page, when GA4 is connected. A sample site and sample counts. Click depth is how many links a crawler follows from the home page to reach a page. AI bots here are GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot and ChatGPT-User. JetOctopus names the first three for its reverse DNS check (asking which host name owns an address); Skald checks all four against their owners' published addresses. JetOctopus, Log Analyzer and Integrations, read 26 Oct 2026 · jetoctopus.com/log-analyzer/ · jetoctopus.com/integrations/ [01] question by question ## Skald vs JetOctopus, question by question Eleven questions, each JetOctopus answer taken from its own page and linked. Where its pages left a point open, the cell says so. See [every comparison](https://skaldanalytics.com/compare/). Skald and JetOctopus compared on eleven questions, with JetOctopus's page for each answer | The question | JetOctopusby its own pages | Skaldyour server log | |---|---|---| | What it is built for | A "cloud-based technical SEO platform built for large websites": its own crawler, server logs, Search Console and GA4 in one place JetOctopus, 26 Oct 2026 · jetoctopus.com/pricing/ | What every request to your site was, people included, and which visits became leads | | How it gets the log | Twelve ways: a real-time Nginx stream, Cloudflare (Logpush, its log export, and Workers), CloudFront, Google Cloud CDN, Fastly, Akamai, Azure Front Door, Vercel, Apache, Shopify, a daily export or a file upload JetOctopus, 26 Oct 2026 · jetoctopus.com/log-analyzer/ | nginx, Apache or Caddy logs from your server; the logs of the CDNs (networks that serve your pages from copies near each visitor) Cloudflare, CloudFront, Fastly and Akamai; a Vercel or Netlify log drain (the host posts each request's record to Skald; Vercel Pro or Netlify Enterprise); a Cloudflare Worker (a small script at Cloudflare that posts each request). With no log at all, a script tag for people | | Which lines it keeps | It "processes only search engine and bot records", and does not store people's log records if you send them JetOctopus, 26 Oct 2026 · jetoctopus.com/log-analyzer/ | Every line, in five groups that add up to the log: people, AI assistants, search engines, bots and scanners, your own traffic | | Is that Googlebot real? | A reverse DNS lookup (asking which host name owns the address) on every request, for Googlebot and for AI crawlers such as GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot; fakes are kept apart. Its pricing table also lists a "Fake IP validation tool" on the Unlimited plan only JetOctopus, 26 Oct 2026 · jetoctopus.com/log-analyzer/ JetOctopus pricing, 26 Oct 2026 · jetoctopus.com/pricing/ | For nine owners (Google, Bing, OpenAI, Anthropic, Perplexity, Apple, DuckDuckGo, Meta, Yandex): their published address lists, reverse DNS or Meta's network. A fake moves to bots as "claims to be Googlebot" | | How fresh the data is | Real time with the Nginx stream; about an hour from Cloudflare and Fastly; one to 24 hours from CloudFront JetOctopus, 26 Oct 2026 · jetoctopus.com/log-analyzer/ | Today so far every 2 minutes from the server's log, requests every 15 seconds on Real time; a CDN's log as fast as the CDN delivers it | | What pages the site has | Its own crawler, with JavaScript rendering, at up to 250 pages a second, on sites of 100 million URLs and more JetOctopus FAQ, 26 Oct 2026 · jetoctopus.com/faq-limits/ | No crawler: Skald reads your sitemap (the site's own list of its pages) once a day and robots.txt once an hour, and sets each crawler's fetches beside them | | People on the site | From Google Analytics 4 (Google's script-tag analytics): "organic traffic by page, segment and device", next to crawl and log data JetOctopus, 26 Oct 2026 · jetoctopus.com/integrations/ | From the log itself, every source, counted only when a browser drew the page; then joined to the forms, bookings and payments that followed | | Search data | Search Console through its API, past the interface's 1,000-row limit, kept beyond Google's 16 months; cannibalization (two of your pages competing for one query) and query fan-outs (the many related searches an AI engine runs for one question, as they show in Search Console) JetOctopus, 26 Oct 2026 · jetoctopus.com/integrations/ | Search Console and Bing Webmaster Tools, synced every 6 hours and set beside the log's visits, never added to them | | Ask it from an AI assistant | An MCP server (a standard way for an AI assistant such as Claude to query a tool), on every plan, that reads crawl, log and Search Console data and can also start and schedule crawls after you confirm a quota preview, and pause them at once JetOctopus, 26 Oct 2026 · jetoctopus.com/mcp/ | An MCP server with 20 read-only tools; it reads figures and changes nothing (hosted: Team plan and up) | | Alerts | By email, Slack or MS Teams; log alerts in real time when AI bots crawl pages kept out of search indexes or miss the home page JetOctopus blog, 26 Oct 2026 · jetoctopus.com/how-to-track-ai-crawler-activity/ | By email, and to Slack or any webhook (hosted: Team plan and up): site down, logging stopped, a run of server errors (5xx), a 404 surge, a crawler burst, a new crawler, an assistant that starts or stops reading a page | | What it costs | For in-house teams, billed yearly: Growth $349, Pro $809, Ultra $1,559 a month; quarterly $459, $1,089 and $2,069; Unlimited by quote. 2, 8 and 25 million log lines a month. A 7-day trial with no card. As listed on jetoctopus.com on 26 Oct 2026 JetOctopus pricing, 26 Oct 2026 · jetoctopus.com/pricing/ | Free on your own server (Elastic License 2.0, source-available). Hosted plans by number of sites and monthly requests, on [the Skald pricing page](https://skaldanalytics.com/pricing/) | Every JetOctopus answer was read on jetoctopus.com on 26 October 2026; prices are its US dollar prices per month, and its agency plans are priced apart on the same page. If we have one wrong, [tell us](https://skaldanalytics.com/contact/). [02] ten lines through the meter ## Which log lines each one keeps, and which it meters Both price their plans by a monthly count of log lines, but they count different lines. Feed the same ten sample lines through each postage meter and see which get franked. flip it - **Googlebot · on Google's list** `GET /shoes/red/`an HTML page: meteredsearch engines - **Googlebot · on Google's list** `GET /img/red.webp`an image: kept, not meteredsearch engines - **bingbot · checked** `GET /shoes/`an HTML page: meteredsearch engines - **"Googlebot" · not Google's** `GET /shoes/red/`a fake: kept apart, not meteredbots: claims to be Googlebot - **GPTBot · on OpenAI's list** `GET /pricing/`an AI crawler: kept, not meteredAI assistants: training crawl - **ChatGPT-User** `GET /docs/setup/`an AI fetcher: kept, not meteredAI assistants: live fetch - **a person · from chatgpt.com** `GET /pricing/`a person's line: not storedpeople: an AI click-through - **a person · a form** `POST /contact/`a person's line: not storedpeople: a lead, from that visit - **a scanner** `GET /.env`? its pages do not saybots and scanners: a probe - **your uptime check** `HEAD /`? its pages do not sayyour own traffic **2 of 10** lines on its log-line meter: HTML pages fetched by a checked Googlebot or Bingbot. Four more bot lines are kept, two people's lines are not stored, and its pages do not say what happens to the last two. JetOctopus, How to calculate logs volume (linked from its pricing table) and FAQ, Pricing, read 26 Oct 2026 · jetoctopus.com/how-to-calculate-logs-volume/ · jetoctopus.com/faq-pricing/ Ten sample lines. JetOctopus's how-to page meters requests for HTML pages from checked Googlebot, Bing and Baidu, and leaves out images, scripts, styles and fakes. That page dates from April 2022; its pricing FAQ still names only search bots, and the how-to page says that once the month's quota is used up, only logs already added can be worked on until the next billing month. Hosted Skald counts every line on the site's hosts. If a plan has a monthly request limit set, lines past it are turned away until the plan changes: the skald-ship shipper sends them again later, and a Cloudflare Worker's are lost. [AI crawler tracking](https://skaldanalytics.com/ai-traffic-analytics/ai-crawlers/) [how server log analytics works](https://skaldanalytics.com/server-log-analytics/how-it-works/) [03] to be fair ## Where JetOctopus does more than Skald JetOctopus is a technical SEO tool first, and its log analyzer is one of six modules. For a large site's crawl budget, how many pages Googlebot will fetch and which ones, it does four things Skald cannot. 1. **Its own crawler** It crawls the whole site, renders JavaScript, and measures click depth and internal links, then sets that crawl beside the bot hits. Skald knows only the pages your sitemap lists. 2. **Search data joined per page** Search Console kept past 16 months, cannibalization, query fan-outs, GA4, Ahrefs backlinks (links from other sites, from Ahrefs' index) and your own data, joined by URL, with an export to Google's BigQuery database and Looker Studio (Data Studio) dashboards. Skald sets Search Console beside its visits and joins no backlinks. 3. **An assistant that can act** Its MCP server can start, pause and schedule crawls, with a preview before anything spends quota. Skald's MCP tools only read. 4. **Seats and sites without a count** Unlimited projects and seats on every plan, and agency plans priced on their own. Skald's hosted plans count sites, and team members on all but the Agency plan. JetOctopus, read 26 Oct 2026 · jetoctopus.com · jetoctopus.com/integrations/ · jetoctopus.com/mcp/ · jetoctopus.com/pricing/ [AI crawl health](https://skaldanalytics.com/ai-traffic-analytics/crawl-health/) [AI traffic analytics for SEO teams](https://skaldanalytics.com/for/seo-teams/) [04] use both ## JetOctopus for the crawl, Skald for everyone who came Both read the same access log. JetOctopus keeps the bots and joins them to its crawl; Skald keeps every line and follows the people to what they did. 1. **Crawled** JetOctopus shows which pages exist, how deep they sit and which ones Googlebot and GPTBot skip. 2. **Visited** Skald counts the people from the same log, whatever sent them: a search, an AI answer, a newsletter or nothing at all, with no script needed in the page. 3. **Followed** A visit is followed to the form, booking or payment it led to. The same log shows the scanners that probed the server and whether one was ever answered. [Add Skald beside JetOctopus, 30 days free](https://skaldanalytics.com/beta/?choice=trial#signup) [Open the live demo](https://spcaeo.github.io/skald/) [lead attribution](https://skaldanalytics.com/lead-attribution/) [website scanner traffic](https://skaldanalytics.com/security/scanners/) [05] choose by the question ## JetOctopus, Skald, or both Pick by whether your question is about the site's structure and Google's crawl, or about who came and what they did. - **"Which deep product pages does Googlebot never reach?"** JetOctopus. - **"Does our JavaScript hide content from AI crawlers?"** JetOctopus. - **"How many visits came from ChatGPT, and did any of them book?"** Skald. - **"Which scanners hit us last night, and was any probe answered?"** Skald. [Skald vs GoAccess](https://skaldanalytics.com/compare/goaccess/) [self-hosted web analytics](https://skaldanalytics.com/self-host/) ### What it does not do - Skald runs no crawler: no JavaScript rendering check, no click depth, no internal-link map. - Page speed comes from Google PageSpeed Insights for the 5 top landing pages a day, with an optional free key of your own (Google often refuses without one); JetOctopus lists Core Web Vitals (Google's speed and layout scores for a page) on every plan. - No GA4 or Ahrefs join, no BigQuery export and no Looker Studio (Data Studio) connector. - Behind a host that gives no log, Skald counts people with its script tag and sees no bots at all. keep reading ## More on Skald vs JetOctopus - [Skald vs GoAccess](https://skaldanalytics.com/compare/goaccess/): Both read the access log. A fast report beside a checked, sorted history. - [AI crawl health](https://skaldanalytics.com/ai-traffic-analytics/crawl-health/): Sitemap coverage by Google, Bing and each AI crawler, and the pages they miss. - [Skald pricing](https://skaldanalytics.com/pricing/): Per site, a 30-day free trial with no card, or free to self-host. questions ## Skald vs JetOctopus FAQ Straight answers, including what Skald does not do. [Read the docs](https://skaldanalytics.com/docs/) [Ask us a question](https://skaldanalytics.com/contact/) **What does JetOctopus do?** By its own pages, read on 26 October 2026: it crawls large websites in the cloud with JavaScript rendering, analyzes server logs for Googlebot, Bingbot, GPTBot, ClaudeBot and 40 or more other crawlers ([JetOctopus Log Analyzer, read 26 Oct 2026](https://jetoctopus.com/log-analyzer/)), and joins both with Search Console, GA4 (Google Analytics, which counts people with a script tag) and Ahrefs (a backlink and keyword index) by URL. Alerts, an AI internal linker and an MCP server (a standard way for an AI assistant such as Claude to query a tool) come with every plan ([JetOctopus home page, read 26 Oct 2026](https://jetoctopus.com/)). **Does JetOctopus count people from the log?** No. Its log analyzer page says it processes only search engine and bot records, and does not store people's log records if you send them ([JetOctopus Log Analyzer, read 26 Oct 2026](https://jetoctopus.com/log-analyzer/)). People come from its GA4 integration, as organic traffic by page. Skald counts people from the log itself, from every source, with nothing added to your pages. **Does JetOctopus check that a Googlebot is real?** Yes. Its log analyzer page says it runs a reverse DNS lookup on every request, for Googlebot and for AI crawlers such as GPTBot, and keeps fakes apart ([JetOctopus Log Analyzer, read 26 Oct 2026](https://jetoctopus.com/log-analyzer/)); its pricing table also lists a fake IP validation tool on the Unlimited plan only. Skald checks nine owners' crawlers against their published lists, reverse DNS or network, and files a fake under bots as "claims to be Googlebot". **How much does JetOctopus cost?** As listed on [JetOctopus pricing, read 26 Oct 2026](https://jetoctopus.com/pricing/), in US dollars a month: for in-house teams, Growth $349, Pro $809 and Ultra $1,559 billed yearly, or $459, $1,089 and $2,069 billed quarterly; for agencies, $409, $809 and $1,729 yearly, or $549, $1,089 and $2,299 quarterly; Unlimited by quote. Its 7-day trial needs no card. Skald is free on your own server; hosted plans are on the [pricing page](https://skaldanalytics.com/pricing/). **Can Skald replace JetOctopus?** For crawling, no: Skald has no crawler, so it cannot check rendering, click depth or internal links. It covers the log side, sets each crawler's fetches beside your sitemap and robots.txt, and adds people, leads and scanners from the same lines. **Can I use both?** Yes. Both read the same access log, so one log can feed both: JetOctopus for the crawl and Googlebot's budget, Skald for every request, the people and the leads.