Hreflang Tester

hreflang Tester compared with Ahrefs Site Audit, Screaming Frog and Sistrix
hreflang Tester (technicalseo.com)	Ahrefs Site Audit	Screaming Frog SEO Spider	Sistrix Optimizer
Scope: It tests a single page and reports its hreflang, http-equiv and HTTP header language settings, along with the online status of the linked language versions.	Scope: It is a site-wide crawler audit. Hreflang issues appear as part of its report on technical and on-page problems.	Scope: It is a desktop crawler that audits a whole site for over 300 SEO issues, hreflang among them.	Scope: The Optimizer crawler checks every page that carries hreflang tags, and it fetches extra URLs beyond the crawl limit when needed to finish those checks.
Checks reported: The three implementation methods are compared on one page. Google recommends using a single method, although using two or three causes no SEO penalty.	Checks reported: Documented issues include missing return tags, x-default present on only some pages, several x-default URLs in a group, and mismatches between page code and sitemap. HTTP header checks are not confirmed in the article.	Checks reported: It reports missing return tags, inconsistent or incorrect language codes and hreflang entries that return a non-200 response.	Checks reported: It reports broken hreflang links, invalid language or region codes, missing return links, missing x-default and missing self-reference.
Cost and limits: It is a free online tool.	Cost and limits: Ahrefs Webmaster Tools offers Site Audit free for verified websites, with 170+ issue types and 5,000 monthly crawl credits per verified project.	Cost and limits: The free version crawls up to 500 URLs and includes hreflang auditing. A paid licence removes the limit, lasts one year and is per seat.
Platform: It runs online, without installation.		Platform: It runs on Windows, macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel) and Linux (Ubuntu and Fedora).

hreflang Tester compared with Ahrefs Site Audit, Screaming Frog and Sistrix

hreflang Tester (technicalseo.com)

Ahrefs Site Audit

Screaming Frog SEO Spider

Sistrix Optimizer

Scope: It tests a single page and reports its hreflang, http-equiv and HTTP header language settings, along with the online status of the linked language versions.

Scope: It is a site-wide crawler audit. Hreflang issues appear as part of its report on technical and on-page problems.

Scope: It is a desktop crawler that audits a whole site for over 300 SEO issues, hreflang among them.

Scope: The Optimizer crawler checks every page that carries hreflang tags, and it fetches extra URLs beyond the crawl limit when needed to finish those checks.

Checks reported: The three implementation methods are compared on one page. Google recommends using a single method, although using two or three causes no SEO penalty.

Checks reported: Documented issues include missing return tags, x-default present on only some pages, several x-default URLs in a group, and mismatches between page code and sitemap. HTTP header checks are not confirmed in the article.

Checks reported: It reports missing return tags, inconsistent or incorrect language codes and hreflang entries that return a non-200 response.

Checks reported: It reports broken hreflang links, invalid language or region codes, missing return links, missing x-default and missing self-reference.

Cost and limits: It is a free online tool.

Cost and limits: Ahrefs Webmaster Tools offers Site Audit free for verified websites, with 170+ issue types and 5,000 monthly crawl credits per verified project.

Cost and limits: The free version crawls up to 500 URLs and includes hreflang auditing. A paid licence removes the limit, lasts one year and is per seat.

Platform: It runs online, without installation.

Platform: It runs on Windows, macOS (Apple Silicon and Intel) and Linux (Ubuntu and Fedora).