Honest Comparison
SEO Pulse vs
SEO Pro Extension
Both are free Chrome extensions for on-page SEO checks. SEO Pro Extension, built by Kristina Azarenko at MarketingSyrup, has a loyal following — here's an accurate, feature-by-feature look at where they're similar and where they differ.
SEO PulseVS
SEO Pro
Giving credit where it's due
What SEO Pro Extension does well
SEO Pro Extension has earned over 115,000 users and a 4.8-star rating, plus Google's Chrome Featured badge — recognition given to extensions that meet a high bar for UX and technical quality. Built by Kristina Azarenko, it has some genuinely useful features SEO Pulse doesn't currently offer.
Full page copy export
SEO Pro can export all visible page text as a TXT file in one click — useful for content review workflows. SEO Pulse doesn't have a dedicated full-copy export feature.
CSV export on Headings, Links, and Images tabs
Each of these three tabs has its own one-click CSV export — including image dimensions in the Images export. SEO Pulse's export is a consolidated HTML report rather than per-tab CSV files.
On-page nofollow highlighting
SEO Pro can frame nofollow links in red directly on the live page with one click from the Links tab. SEO Pulse's link audit data is shown in-panel rather than overlaid on the page itself.
Core Web Vitals via CrUX field data — both tools offer this. SEO Pro Extension pulls Chrome User Experience Report data (field data, falling back to origin-level data) for LCP, INP, and CLS. SEO Pulse also displays Core Web Vitals and links directly to CrUX Vis and PageSpeed Insights for deeper field and lab data. Worth noting clearly since CWV display isn't universal among free extensions.
The core difference
Seven tabs to review
vs one prioritised list
SEO Pro Extension organises its data cleanly across seven tabs. The difference is what happens after the data loads.
SEO Pro Extension
1Open Overview tab — title, meta, canonical, robots, word count
2Click into Headings tab — review the H1–H6 tree yourself
3Click into Status tab — check HTTP status and redirect chain
4Click into Links tab — scan internal/external, highlight nofollow
5Click into Images tab — manually spot missing alt tags
6Click into Schema tab — review structured data visually
7Click into Social tab — preview Open Graph manually
SEO Pulse
1Open the extension — Issues Tab shows everything found, ranked
2Critical issues listed first, with plain-English fix suggestions
3Each issue links directly to the relevant tab for more detail
4That's it — no tab-hopping required to know what to fix first
Feature-by-feature
Full comparison
| Feature | SEO Pulse | SEO Pro Extension |
|---|---|---|
| Core philosophy | ||
| Prioritised Issues list (severity-ranked) | ✓ 85+ checks | — tab-by-tab review |
| Plain-English fix suggestions | ✓ | basic hints only |
| Page-type-aware checks (product, blog, etc.) | ✓ | — |
| On-page basics | ||
| Title, meta description, robots tag | ✓ | ✓ |
| Canonical detection | ✓ + outside-head, multiple | ✓ self/different hint |
| Heading hierarchy view | ✓ | ✓ tree + colour coding |
| Word count | ✓ | ✓ |
| HTTP status badge on icon | ✓ redirect count | ✓ status code |
| Rendering & JavaScript | ||
| SSR vs JS-rendered badge per signal | ✓ unique | — |
| Raw HTML vs rendered DOM side-by-side | ✓ JS Compare | — |
| Schema & structured data | ||
| Schema viewer | ✓ | ✓ all types shown |
| Schema validation (errors/warnings) | ✓ | — viewer only |
| Hreflang | ||
| Hreflang tag viewer | ✓ | — no hreflang feature |
| Reciprocal return-link check | ✓ | — |
| Crawlability & indexability | ||
| Robots.txt parser + URL tester | ✓ interactive tester | link to file only |
| AI bot access (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, etc.) | ✓ 20 bots checked | — |
| Sitemap discovery | ✓ recursive, 3 levels deep | link to sitemap.xml only |
| Server probes (404, www, HTTPS, case) | ✓ 5 live probes | — |
| Redirects | ||
| Redirect chain tracking | ✓ real-time icon badge | ✓ shown in Status tab |
| 301 vs 302 distinction in chain | ✓ | status codes shown |
| Other | ||
| Core Web Vitals (CrUX field data) | ✓ + CrUX Vis link | ✓ field/origin data |
| Google Search Console data in-popup | ✓ | — |
| Scripts & tracking tool detection | ✓ 21 tools | — |
| Open Graph / social preview | ✓ editable SERP preview | ✓ Social tab preview |
| Export as HTML report | ✓ full audit report | — |
| CSV export per tab (headings/links/images) | via full report export | ✓ dedicated buttons |
| Full page copy export (TXT) | — | ✓ |
| On-page nofollow link highlighting | — shown in-panel instead | ✓ overlay on page |
| Price & access | ||
| Cost | Free | Free |
| Account required | No | No |
| Feature gating / paid tier | None | None (optional donation) |
The three biggest gaps
Where the difference actually matters
No prioritised issue list
SEO Pro Extension presents clean, well-organised data across seven tabs and does show hints for noindex and canonical mismatches — but there's no consolidated, severity-ranked view across every check. You still review each tab individually to build the full picture.
No SSR vs JS detection
SEO Pro Extension reads the page as rendered in your browser — there's no mechanism for comparing raw server HTML against the rendered DOM. On JavaScript-heavy sites, this means it can't tell you whether a signal like the title or canonical only exists after JS runs.
No hreflang support
SEO Pro Extension has no hreflang tab or feature at all — international SEO checks aren't covered. SEO Pulse includes a full hreflang checker with reciprocal return link verification and per-alternate HTTP status checking.
FAQ
Common questions
Is SEO Pro Extension by MarketingSyrup free? +
Yes. SEO Pro Extension, built by Kristina Azarenko of MarketingSyrup, is completely free — there's no subscription and no feature gating, though the developer does accept optional donations via Buy Me a Coffee. SEO Pulse takes the same approach: full feature set from install, no account, no paywall.
Does SEO Pro Extension have an Issues Tab or severity ranking? +
No. SEO Pro Extension presents data across seven separate tabs — Overview, Headings, Status, Links, Images, Schema, and Social. It does show useful hints directly on the extension icon and in the Overview tab for things like a noindex meta robots tag or a canonical pointing to a different page, but it doesn't generate a consolidated, severity-ranked list spanning every check the way SEO Pulse's Issues Tab does.
Does SEO Pro Extension check hreflang tags? +
No, SEO Pro Extension does not have a hreflang feature or tab. SEO Pulse includes a dedicated hreflang checker with reciprocal return link verification and HTTP status checking per alternate URL — useful if you work on multi-region or multi-language sites.
Does SEO Pro Extension detect AI crawlers like GPTBot? +
No, SEO Pro Extension does not include AI bot access detection. SEO Pulse's AI Bot Access feature checks robots.txt against 20 crawlers including GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot, and more, showing allowed or blocked status for the current page URL.
Does SEO Pro Extension show Core Web Vitals? +
Yes. SEO Pro Extension pulls Chrome User Experience Report (CrUX) data for LCP, INP, and CLS — checking field data first, then falling back to origin-level data if field data isn't available for that specific page. SEO Pulse also displays Core Web Vitals and additionally links directly to CrUX Vis and PageSpeed Insights for deeper field and lab data analysis.
Should I use both extensions?
There's no technical conflict in running both — SEO Pro's full page copy export and per-tab CSV exports are genuinely useful features SEO Pulse doesn't currently replicate in the same format. Many SEOs run a small stack of complementary extensions rather than relying on just one.
Try SEO Pulse free
No account. No data sent to servers. 125+ checks from install.
★★★★★ on Chrome Web Store · 100+ users · No data sent to servers