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Why Teams Switch from Distill.io

Distill is a capable local-first monitor, and its extension has a loyal following. Teams switch when the architecture starts working against them: sites their cloud cannot reach, restocks reported as errors, and local checks that die with the browser.

1. 01

   Monitors the Sites Distill Says It Cannot

   On Distill's own support forum, staff answer that cloud monitoring of certain major retail stores is not supported because of bot protection,^[1][2] and users report Walmart's robot check blocking even the local desktop app.^[3] The suggested workaround is running checks from your own computer and IP. PageCrawl treats heavily protected retail, travel and ticketing pages as a core capability and monitors them reliably, on every plan.

2. 02

   A Restock Never Lands as an Error

   In Distill, a tracked element disappearing produces a Selection Empty error instead of an alert, and users report missing product releases exactly that way.^[1] PageCrawl tracks availability as a first-class signal: an element vanishing is a change, and the alert goes out.

3. 03

   Nothing Depends on Your Laptop

   Distill checks local monitors only while the browser or desktop app is running, and there is no indicator when a local monitor silently stops; a user request for one was left unanswered beyond a workaround.^[1] Extension parity is its own risk: the Firefox extension went without updates for an extended period with staff citing "no eta".^[2] Every PageCrawl monitor runs in the cloud, so there is nothing local to die and no extension version to fall behind.

4. 04

   JavaScript-Heavy Pages Render Fully, Every Check

   Distill's extension checks pages in background browser tabs, and its support team confirms that on many modern sites content "may not load at all" there, so prices read as zero and listings come back empty; the prescribed fixes are a popup window during every check, the desktop app, or paid cloud checks.^[1] And when Chrome's Manifest V2 phase-out forced the extension onto Manifest V3, it permanently lost JavaScript selectors: "js selectors won't work in modern chrome versions."^[2] PageCrawl renders every page in a full browser on its own servers on every check, so JavaScript-heavy pages load the way they do for a real visitor.

5. 05

   AI Filters the Noise You Would Otherwise Regex Away

   Noise control in Distill means writing and maintaining regex, text and value conditions per monitor, and one wrong global condition can silence every alert you have. PageCrawl scores every change 0-100 with AI on every plan, learns recurring noise patterns per page, and lets you set the threshold, with advanced conditions still available when you want hard rules.

6. 06

   AI Summaries on Every Plan

   Distill staff confirm its AI summary is available only for cloud monitors on Flexi and above, from $80+/mo.^[1] Every PageCrawl plan, including Free, ships AI change summaries, custom AI instructions, and the option to bring your own key and pick the model.