@lhci/cli (from Google) is best for tracking a known list of critical URLs over time with performance budgets and historical dashboards. Unlighthouse is best for auditing every page of a site at once via auto-discovery. The two tools solve different problems.

The two tools

npm install -g @lhci/cli
lhci autorun

Side-by-side comparison

When to use @lhci/cli

Pick LHCI when:

• You have a handful of critical URLs (homepage, checkout, product page) and want to track them over weeks or months.
• You need hard performance budgets enforced on every PR, with builds failing when thresholds break.
• You want to use Lighthouse 13 diagnostics (requires LHCI v0.15+ and Node.js 22+).
• You want a historical dashboard showing score trends, and you're willing to host @lhci/server or use temporary public storage.
• You're already invested in the Google Chrome tooling ecosystem and want first-party GitHub App integration.

LHCI's strength is depth on a narrow set of pages. It was designed for the workflow where a team picks 5 to 10 representative URLs, sets budgets, and watches for regressions commit by commit. In 2026, the roadmap focuses on SHA-pinning security for all CI actions to prevent supply chain attacks.

When to use Unlighthouse

Pick Unlighthouse when:

• You want to audit the entire site, not just a predefined list.
• You don't know which pages are slowest, and you want to find out.
• You need to audit 1,000+ pages; Unlighthouse's Smart Sampling identifies route patterns and only audits representative samples, making it 10x faster than sequential testing.
• Setup speed matters; you want to go from install to results in under a minute.
• You need to spot patterns across routes, for example a shared layout causing CLS on 200 blog posts.
• You want an interactive UI for browsing per-page results, not static HTML reports.

Unlighthouse's strength is breadth. It finds problems you didn't know to look for. The homepage might score 95, while /pricing/enterprise scores 62 because a marketing tag manager ships 400KB of JavaScript that never hit the homepage.

Running both in parallel

The tools complement each other. A common setup:

• Every PR: @lhci/cli runs on 5-10 critical URLs with strict budgets. Fast feedback, historical tracking via LHCI server.
• Weekly scheduled job: Unlighthouse scans the full site, posts a summary to Slack, flags any page scoring below 70.

name: Lighthouse CI
on: [pull_request]
jobs:
  lhci:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - uses: actions/checkout@v4
      - run: npm ci
      - run: npx @lhci/cli@latest autorun

name: Weekly Health Check
on:
  schedule:
    - cron: '0 6 * * 1' # Monday 6am
jobs:
  unlighthouse:
    runs-on: ubuntu-latest
    steps:
      - run: npx unlighthouse-ci --site https://example.com --build-static
      - uses: actions/upload-artifact@v4
        with:
          name: unlighthouse-report
          path: .unlighthouse

Summary

Pick @lhci/cli for deep regression tracking on a curated URL list with historical dashboards. Pick Unlighthouse for fast, site-wide audits that surface problems across every route. Run both if you want per-PR gates plus scheduled full-site coverage.