Compare Environments

Compare Environments lets you scan two versions of your site and see exactly what is different between them. Use it to compare staging and production, or any two environments, before you publish.

Unlike a standard scan, this does not use a baseline. Every run crawls both environments fresh and compares them directly. You see what is different right now, not what changed since a previous run.

When to use it

Use Compare Environments when you need to answer: “Are there any unexpected differences between staging and production before I push?”

Common pairings:

• Staging vs production
• Development vs staging
• A/B variant vs production
• Any two URLs that should look the same

How it works

Sitepager scans both environments and compares the results.

Pages with the same URL path are compared. Pages that exist on one environment but not the other are flagged as added or removed.

Setting it up

1. Click New Scan from the Dashboard
2. Enter your Website URL — your production site
3. Check Compare environments under the Website URL field
4. Enter the Comparison URL — your staging site. This is the reference environment the comparison runs against.
5. Configure Advanced Settings as needed
6. Click Run Scan

What the results show

• Visual differences are highlighted page by page. See exactly where the two environments differ.
• Pages that exist on only one environment are flagged. If staging has a page that production does not, it shows as added. If production has a page that staging does not, it shows as removed.
• SEO issues are listed per page. Missing titles, descriptions, headings, and alt text are flagged on either environment.
• Broken pages and links found on either environment are reported.

No baseline is saved

Every run is a fresh comparison. Sitepager crawls both environments from scratch each time.

You do not need to manage baselines for Compare Environments scans. Re-run whenever you want to see the current difference between the environments.

If you need to track changes over time against a fixed reference point, use a standard scan with a baseline instead.

How it fits into the release process

The typical flow for teams with a staging environment:

1. Make your changes on staging
2. Run your staging scan against its baseline — confirm staging looks right
3. Run the Compare Environments scan — confirm staging and production only differ where you expect
4. Push to production
5. Run your production scan — confirm production matches what you approved on staging

Step 3 is where Compare Environments fits. It answers: “Are there any unexpected differences between staging and production before I push?”

Setting Up Your Scans: how to structure your staging and production scans

Tips

Name your scan clearly. Use a name like “Staging vs Production - Desktop” so you can find and re-run it quickly.

Keep the same scan settings for both environments. The same device, region, and max pages should be used. Differences in settings can cause false positives.

Use Include and Exclude patterns to focus on key pages. For large sites, scope the comparison to your highest-priority pages — homepage, pricing, product pages.

Run it right before pushing to production. The closer the comparison is to the actual push, the more accurate it is.

Use it alongside baseline scans, not instead of them. Compare Environments shows what is different between two environments right now. Baseline scans show what changed since your last approved state. Both serve different purposes.