Vergate vs Lighthouse: which should you use?
#TL;DR
- Lighthouse: Free, open-source, maintained by Google. The deepest single-run performance diagnostics — waterfalls, traces, filmstrips. Works offline. Best for one-off audits.
- Vergate: Runs the same Lighthouse engine on a schedule, adds HTTP resource checks, AI fix prompts, plus security, SEO, AEO, accessibility, and monitoring. Free tier, paid from $20/mo.
- Key difference: Lighthouse answers "what's wrong with this page right now." Vergate answers "what changed since last Tuesday and did the deploy break anything."
#Feature-by-feature comparison
| Feature | Vergate | Lighthouse |
|---|---|---|
| Core Web Vitals | LCP, TBT, CLS, FCP, SI (same engine) | LCP, TBT, CLS, FCP, SI |
| Category scores | Performance, Accessibility, Best Practices, SEO | Same 4 categories |
| Waterfall/traces | Not in current release (planned) | Full waterfall, traces, filmstrips |
| HTTP resource checks | 11 checks (bundle sizes, caching, third-party, preconnect) | Not included |
| Continuous monitoring | Scheduled scans with trend history | One-off or CI/CD (Lighthouse CI) |
| Regression detection | Compares scores across runs, flags regressions | Not built-in |
| AI fix prompts | Every failing metric → copy-paste LLM prompt | Not included |
| Security scanning | 12 passive + ZAP active DAST | Not included |
| SEO scanning | 20 checks (Playwright-rendered) | Basic SEO category |
| AEO (AI visibility) | 26 checks (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, PerplexityBot) | Not included |
| Accessibility (WCAG) | axe-core WCAG 2.1 AA | Accessibility category |
| Uptime monitoring | 24/7 with configurable intervals | Not included |
| Technology profiling | 50+ detectors + WhatWeb | Not included |
| PDF reports | Tamper-evident signed PDFs | Not included |
| MCP server | Yes (stdio + HTTP transport) | Not included |
| Cost | Free tier · $20/mo · $39/mo · $56/mo | Free (open source) |
| Best for | Continuous monitoring, all-in-one health | Deep single-run diagnostics |
#Choose Vergate if...
- You want performance monitoring over time — did the last deploy regress the score?
- You want performance + security + SEO + AEO + accessibility in one scan.
- You want AI fix suggestions on every failing metric.
- You want HTTP resource quality checks (bundle sizes, caching, third-party scripts).
- You want a health score that combines all dimensions.
#Choose Lighthouse if...
- You need the deepest single-run diagnostics — full waterfall, traces, filmstrips.
- You're doing a one-off audit before a release.
- You want to integrate performance testing into CI/CD via Lighthouse CI.
- Budget is the primary constraint — Lighthouse is free forever.
- You need to debug specific resource loading issues (waterfall analysis).
#The honest take
Lighthouse is a genuinely great tool, and it's free. If your performance story is "I run Lighthouse in DevTools before a big release," that's a perfectly reasonable story for a side project.
Vergate runs the same Lighthouse engine, so the metrics are identical. The difference is what happens next: Vergate stores the results, compares them against your history, flags regressions, and adds HTTP resource checks that Lighthouse doesn't do. Plus it folds security, SEO, AEO, and accessibility into the same report.
If all you need is a one-off performance audit, use Lighthouse in DevTools. If you need to know whether your site got faster or slower since last week, Vergate's continuous monitoring earns its keep.
#Sources
Every claim on this page was verified against these resources on August 18, 2026.
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