Comparisons with published methodology Every claim dated & sourced

AI coding assistants · Original data

AI crawler access test: can answer engines read these vendors?

Updated 2026-09-27 · markdown mirror

Verdict

8 of 8 tool sites reachable from our build machine on 2026-09-27. 2 of 8 restrict any checked AI crawler in robots.txt. 5 of 8 ship an /llms.txt (claude-code, cursor, github-copilot, gemini-cli, kiro). Median homepage TTFB: kiro fastest at 21ms, opencode slowest at 542ms.

AI crawler access test: can answer engines read these vendors? — n=8 tools, 3 runs per tool
ToolTTFB ms (median)HTML KB/llms.txtAI crawler policyBlocked bots
claude-code 98 Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page 320.8 Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page yes Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page open Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page none Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page
codex 68 Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page — Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page no Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page open Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page none Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page
cursor 73 Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page 617.8 Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page yes Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page open Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page none Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page
github-copilot 31 Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page 562.7 Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page yes Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page partial Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page Bytespider Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page
opencode 542 Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page 65.3 Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page no Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page open Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page none Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page
gemini-cli 29 Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page 562.7 Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page yes Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page partial Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page Bytespider Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page
kilo 371 Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page 482 Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page no Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page open Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page none Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page
kiro 21 Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page 281.6 Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page yes Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page open Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page none Tested by us Checked 2026-09-27 /ai-coding-assistants/benchmarks/ai-coding-assistants-ai-crawler-access/ Our benchmark (n=8 tools × 3 runs) — methodology on the benchmark page

● tested by us · ● documented at the source · ● unconfirmed, queued in /confirm.txt — hover or tap a dot for the source and date

Methodology

  1. Fetch https://<domain>/robots.txt with a plain HTTP GET and a desktop user agent.
  2. Parse User-agent groups line by line; a bot is blocked only if a group naming it (or the * wildcard) contains a 'Disallow: /' rule.
  3. Bots checked: GPTBot, ClaudeBot, CCBot, PerplexityBot, Google-Extended, Applebot-Extended, Bytespider.
  4. Policy: blocked = GPTBot, ClaudeBot, and CCBot all disallowed from /; partial = at least one checked bot disallowed; open = no restrictions; unknown = robots.txt unreachable.
  5. Fetch https://<domain>/llms.txt; llmsTxt = HTTP 200.
  6. Fetch the homepage 3 times; TTFB is time to response headers; report the median. HTML size is the decoded body length of the last successful fetch.

Limitations

Script: scripts/crawler-test.mjs · Run 2026-09-27 · Reproduce with npm run bench