Compared in November 2026
Both plugins find broken links on a WordPress site and let you fix them without editing every post. Broken Link Checker by WPMU DEV is the long-established choice, with a local engine and a cloud engine; Clearyvo Broken Link Checker checks every finished page from your browser.
The short answer
- Choose Broken Link Checker (WPMU DEV) for scheduled scans and e-mail alerts in the free plugin, a cloud engine that takes the load off your server, bulk actions and the WPMU DEV Hub for several sites.
- Choose Clearyvo Broken Link Checker to check links in menus, footers, widgets and page builders as visitors see them, with fixes written where each link is stored, without an account or an outside service.
At a Glance
| Clearyvo Broken Link Checker | Broken Link Checker (by WPMU DEV) | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | Free | Free |
| On WordPress.org | Coming soon (download from our site) | Yes (500,000+ active installations) |
| Requirements | WordPress 6.2, PHP 7.4 | WordPress 6.2, PHP 7.4 |
| How it scans | Opens every published page in your browser; links to other sites checked by your server | Local engine on your server, or a cloud engine through the WPMU DEV API |
| Account needed | No | Local engine: no. Cloud engine: a connection to WPMU DEV (a free Hub account is available) |
| Links in menus, footers, widgets, page builders | Yes: the finished page is checked | |
| Missing images | Yes, lazy-loaded ones too | Images are crawled |
| Redirects | Listed; “Link to the final address” writes it into the page | Detected |
| Fixing | Change the address or remove the link in the block editor, classic editor, Elementor data and custom menu links; a revision of every changed page | Edit, unlink or ignore; bulk actions |
| “Could not check” kept apart from broken | Yes (401, 403, 429, timeouts) | |
| Scheduled scans and e-mail alerts | No scheduled scan; a weekly e-mail of new broken links with Clearyvo Pro, from €59 a year | Yes, in the free plugin |
| Limits | Up to 10,000 links on your own site per check | Cloud engine: unlimited page and URL checks, as listed |
Where They Differ
Where the scan runs
The WPMU DEV plugin can scan on your server (local engine) or hand the work to WPMU DEV’s servers (cloud engine), which it describes as faster and lighter on your hosting. Clearyvo Broken Link Checker has no background crawler: the scan runs while you keep its page open, your browser loads your own pages and your server checks the outside links, ten at a time. No data leaves your site except the requests to the linked addresses.
What counts as a page's links
Clearyvo Broken Link Checker reads the page as a visitor gets it, so links that a theme, a widget, a shortcode or a page builder prints are checked like links in the text. Links that only the theme prints are reported with their page, to be changed in the theme.
Automation
The WPMU DEV plugin offers scheduled scans and e-mail reports in the free version. In the Clearyvo family, scans are started by you; Clearyvo Pro, the paid all-in-one plugin, adds a weekly e-mail of new broken links from those scans.
When to Choose Broken Link Checker (WPMU DEV)
- You want scans to run on a schedule and e-mail you, without paying.
- Your hosting is tight on resources and you are happy to use the cloud engine and a WPMU DEV account.
- You manage many sites in the WPMU DEV Hub.
- You clean up many links at once with bulk actions.
When to Choose Clearyvo Broken Link Checker
- Broken links hide in menus, footers, widgets or page builder layouts, not only in post content.
- You want each fix written where the link is stored, with a revision to undo it.
- You want no account and no outside service, and a clear line between “broken” and “could not check”.
- You already use other Clearyvo checkers and want one Site Toolkit menu and Site health score.
Sources
- Broken Link Checker on WordPress.org (version 2.4.15, local and cloud engines, account, features, active installations, requirements)
- Clearyvo Broken Link Checker (version 0.8.0, readme)
The other plugins’ names are trademarks of their owners and are used here only to identify their products; Clearyvo is not affiliated with them. We make Clearyvo Broken Link Checker. Facts about the other plugins are taken from the pages listed under Sources on 6 November 2026; an empty cell means the page did not say. Prices and features change: check the vendors’ pages before you buy, and write to info@clearyvo.com if a fact here has changed.
Read the guide: How to Find and Fix Broken Links in WordPress Compare: Clearyvo Broken Link Checker vs Broken Link Checker (WPMU DEV)