QAlaunch
QALAUNCH VS GOOGLE LIGHTHOUSE

Lighthouse scores how your page loads.
It never actually looks at it.

Google Lighthouse audits performance, accessibility, best practices and technical SEO, and it is genuinely excellent at that — free, unlimited, built into Chrome. What it cannot do is judge whether your page works for a human: whether the hero is cut off at phone width, whether a button leads anywhere, whether a form actually delivers. A site can score 100/100 and still lose every visitor at the sign-up screen.

This is not a case of one tool being better. Lighthouse and QAlaunch measure genuinely different things, and the most common mistake is assuming a green Lighthouse score means the site is fine for visitors.

Lighthouse is a lab tool. It loads your page, measures how fast it renders, runs a set of automated code and accessibility rules, and returns four scores. It is the right tool for performance work, and you should keep using it.

What it does not do is use your website. It never scrolls, never taps a button, never submits a form, and never forms an opinion about what the page looks like at 375px. Those are the failures that cost sales.

Where each one actually looks

CapabilityGoogle LighthouseQAlaunch
Load speed and Core Web VitalsYes — the reference toolReported, via PageSpeed data
Automated accessibility rulesYes (axe-based)Yes (axe-based)
Technical SEO basicsYesYes
Renders the page at phone width and inspects itNoYes — desktop + mobile screenshots
Judges whether the layout is visually brokenNoYes — AI visual review
Clicks buttons and links to see if they workNoYes
Checks a form responds and validatesNoYes
Output written for a non-developerNo — technical audit listYes — plain English
PriceFree, unlimitedFree preview · full report from $9

When Lighthouse is the better tool

  • You are working on load speed. Lighthouse is the reference implementation for Core Web Vitals and gives you the exact metrics and opportunities to fix, for free and as often as you like.
  • You want a repeatable technical score to track over time, or to wire into a build pipeline.
  • You are a developer, comfortable reading an audit list, and you already know how to interpret and act on it.
  • Your budget is zero. Lighthouse is free forever and there is no reason not to run it.

When Lighthouse will not tell you what you need

  • Your site scores well and still is not converting. Lighthouse has no opinion on whether your call-to-action is readable, findable, or compelling.
  • You built with an AI tool and cannot review the code yourself. You need findings in plain English, not a list of audit IDs.
  • The problem might be visual — a hero taller than a phone screen, a section that overlaps, a button whose label disappears against its own background over a gradient or image.
  • You need to know whether things actually work: whether the nav links resolve, whether the form responds, whether the images load.

The honest answer: run both

They are not substitutes. Run Lighthouse for performance and technical health — it is free and it is the best tool for that job. Run QAlaunch when you need to know what a first-time visitor on a phone actually experiences. The two reports rarely overlap, and the second one is the one that explains why a fast site still is not converting.

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Frequently asked questions

Can Lighthouse find broken buttons or links?
No. Lighthouse analyses the page as loaded — it does not click anything. A button wired to nothing, a nav link pointing at a route that was renamed, or a form that submits into the void all pass Lighthouse without comment, because none of them are loading or code-quality problems.
My Lighthouse score is 100. Why would I need anything else?
A 100 score means the page loads fast, passes automated code checks, and has its technical SEO in order. It says nothing about whether the layout holds together at phone width, whether your primary action is visible, or whether the sign-up flow works. Those are judged by looking at and using the page, which Lighthouse does not do.
Does QAlaunch replace Lighthouse?
No, and it should not. QAlaunch reports performance data too, but Lighthouse is the reference tool for Core Web Vitals and it is free. Use it for performance. QAlaunch covers the visitor-experience layer above it — visual, functional and usability problems that no code audit detects.
Does Lighthouse check the mobile version?
Lighthouse has a mobile mode that throttles the connection and emulates a mobile viewport for its performance measurements. That is a performance simulation, not a visual inspection — it will not tell you the heading is clipped or the checkout button sits off-screen at 375px.

Read more: why sites break on mobile but not desktop, 9 bugs every AI-built site ships with.

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