LinkChecker

What it is and what it does

LinkChecker is a command-line and web-based tool that crawls websites to find broken links, invalid URLs, and other link-related issues. It performs recursive, multithreaded checking across pages and can output results in multiple formats (text, HTML, SQL, CSV, XML, sitemap). It supports a wide range of link types including HTTP/HTTPS, FTP, mailto, and local files, and includes features like proxy support, HTTP authentication, robots.txt compliance, and cookie handling.

The tool is designed for site maintainers and QA workflows who need to verify link integrity across their web properties. It runs as a standalone command-line utility or Docker container, making it easy to integrate into CI/CD pipelines or run on-demand. With active maintenance, Python 3.9+ support, and no known security vulnerabilities, it is a stable choice for link validation tasks.

Use it for:

• Audit a website before deployment to catch broken internal and external links
• Regularly check a production site for link rot and report results in HTML or CSV format
• Validate links in documentation or static site generators as part of a build process
• Check compliance with robots.txt and crawl restrictions during site analysis
• Generate a sitemap graph or XML report of all discovered links on a domain

Worth the install?

AI-flagged interpretation of the facts on this page — verify before relying

LinkChecker validates links across websites by crawling pages and reporting broken or invalid URLs, supporting HTTP, HTTPS, FTP, mailto, and local file links.

Yes. LinkChecker is actively maintained, production-stable, has low install friction, carries no known vulnerabilities, and solves a concrete problem for site maintenance and QA. The GPLv2+ license is a consideration only if you plan to incorporate it into proprietary software; for internal use or open-source projects it is unrestricted.

Install

linkchecker on PyPI

pip install linkchecker

uv add linkchecker

poetry add linkchecker

Installing LinkChecker

Before you install

Low install friction with three common dependencies (beautifulsoup4, dnspython, requests). Actively maintained with recent commits and stable production status.

License in practice

GPLv2+ copyleft license: any derivative work or distribution must also be open-source under GPL. Suitable for internal tools and open-source projects, but incompatible with proprietary software that would incorporate it.

Quickstart

pip install linkchecker
linkchecker https://www.example.com

Requires Python 3.9 or later.

Verify before relying

• Whether the multithreaded crawling performance scales well for very large sites
• Current state of the web interface mentioned in features
• Whether check plugins are bundled or require separate installation

Package facts

Evidence: LinkChecker-10.6.0-py3-none-any.whl

Keywords: checking, crawling, link, site, url, validation, verification

Tags

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