Ahrefs has long established itself as a powerful SEO tool that can accommodate a variety of research and optimization needs. Its pricing can be steep, but there are many Ahrefs alternatives that perform on par with it.
This article will explore the best Ahrefs alternatives, compare them to Ahrefs, and provide some tips on choosing an SEO tool that’s right for you.
Before you choose the best Ahrefs alternative, you need to understand which type of tool would suit your business. Here are four major factors to consider.
The main thing you have to consider is the set of business goals you want to pursue. Ahrefs covers the majority of common SEO tasks, but some Ahrefs alternatives are better for one particular type of SEO task than the other.
For instance, if your goal is optimizing thousands of pages on a website, you’d be better off with a tool that has good capabilities for analyzing and grouping keywords in bulk and excels in technical SEO.
For businesses that emphasize content marketing to attract informational traffic, tools with good content analysis features would be best. This can include features content gap analysis, detailed SERP analysis, and in-app content editing tools.
The scope of your business goals and your progress determines how advanced a tool you need. If your organization is only beginning its path in SEO and has smaller goals, you can probably do with a simpler Ahrefs alternative like SEO PowerSuite. If you are already performing well in search and have ambitious goals, you’ll have to invest in a more advanced tool like SE Ranking that can do a deeper analysis to get you from the top ten to the top three.
Larger business goals define some of the types of SEO tasks you’ll need to perform, and that should be reflected in your choice of tools. Another factor that determines what scope of tasks you need to perform is the strong and weak sides of your optimization efforts.
Judge this based on an SEO audit. Typically, you’d find that one or more of the areas of SEO might be lacking, like technical optimization or off-page SEO. In that case, you’d need a tool that focuses on those specific areas to improve on them.
An organization’s budget is another major factor that influences the choice of SEO tools, and it’s precisely the reason why many people are looking for Ahrefs alternatives.
The best Ahrefs alternative for you would have a balance between pricing and the quality of features it provides. It’s best when a tool has a flexible payment system that allows you to pay less if you’re using less features and scale up if needed.
Many Ahrefs alternatives have a few user seats included in plans and offer purchasing additional seats. If you have a large SEO team, look for tools that either have enough seats included in the base plan or offer cheap additional ones.
If you run a large marketing department, you might look for tools with good reporting solutions to improve communication between departments.
Now that you know which factors are in play when choosing an Ahrefs alternative, let’s take a deeper look at what your ideal SEO tool would look like.
The price of the tool is the most obvious thing to take into consideration. Ahrefs competitors that are perfect for you will have all of the features you need included in a single affordable plan. In many cases, you’ll find that the features you need are only available in costlier tiers or are offered as add-ons. You’ll have to decide whether that works for you or do you want to find another tool that lets you access those features in a more affordable way.
The variety of tools you get for the price is the next factor. Ideally, you want to have the following tools included in the pricetag:
If your Ahrefs alternative of choice also has content optimization features and a report builder, it covers most of the features Ahrefs has.
Keep in mind that each tool has many features. For instance, Ahrefs provides both traditional backlink analysis and a backlink gap analyzer. Make sure that the features you need are present in the Ahrefs competitor you decide to try.
Even though the number of tools you get and pricing are more important, the quality of the UI plays a role as well. A user interface that is not intuitive to use and takes you ages to find the right thing can slow down your understanding of the tool and make the learning curve steeper.
Few modern SEO tools have an outdated UI, so this mainly comes down to your personal preferences.
Neither Ahrefs itself nor the best Ahrefs alternatives have the full data on any aspect of SEO. All they work with is a network of web spiders that gather data and data analytics models that process it. So, results in keyword research and backlink analysis can vary from tool to tool.
Most will produce accurate data, but it may be incomplete. Ahrefs is one of the best in the industry in terms of sheer volume of data it gathers so backlink analysis, for instance, is going to give you more data than many of Ahrefs competitors.
You can judge data accuracy and comprehensiveness based on reviews online and comparing data between different tools.
The final piece of the puzzle is the quality of customer support, from the onboarding process to the speed and helpfulness of responses from customer support representatives. A worthy Ahrefs competitor should have a detailed knowledge base with both in-depth guides on advanced usage of the tool and API connections and easy-to-follow beginner guides.
This will help you learn to use the tool faster as opposed to simply experimenting with it until you master the basics.
SE Ranking is an all-around SEO tool that is a close competitor of Ahrefs.
SE Ranking offers the standard suite of SEO tools — competitor analysis, website audits, keyword research, and rank tracking. Everything Ahrefs offers and everything an SEO specialist would need.
On top of those, there’s a suite of content marketing tools. This includes the idea finder, SERP analytics for topic research, and an AI writer. It covers the whole content creation process from start to finish.
There are also add-ons for local SEO and social media analytics.
The tools both companies provide offer similar features, so the differences boil down to the quality of data. SE Ranking has a database of trillions of backlinks and billions of keywords. It crawls 14 billion pages daily to improve that database.
In terms of sheer amount of data, Ahrefs is ahead, but both companies provide accurate competitor insights and rank tracking data.
SE Ranking pricing is between $65 and $259 monthly for different plans. Local marketing and content marketing features are available as an add-on.
There’s a 14-day trial available.
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All-around toolset.
Useful unique features.
A good amount of usage credits.
Accurate data.
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Some advanced features are only available as add-ons.
SE Ranking is one of the best Ahrefs competitors both in terms of data accuracy and the number of tools available.
Majestic offers a suite of SEO tools with a heavy emphasis on backlink analysis.
Majestic has a suite of backlink analysis tools on par with Ahrefs. You can check links individually and in bulk and use advanced features to discover websites that link to multiple competitors and quickly find sites that link to websites in a particular search result page.
It also has tools for discovering authors who write about topics related to your industry.
Majestic has keyword research and rank-tracking tools, but they offer less depth than other Ahrefs competitors.
In terms of backlink analysis, both tools are very similar. Many users report both find significantly more backlinks than competitors.
However, Ahrefs offers more SEO tools than just backlink analysis, and its keyword research and rank-tracking tools are better than Majestic’s.
Majestic offers a 7-day free trial. The paid plans cost $49 and $99 per month — both more affordable than the cheapest Ahrefs plan.
Great backlink tools.
Affordable pricing.
Poor rank tracker.
No content optimization features.
Majestic is a great Ahrefs alternative if you’re looking for a backlink tool. If you need an all-around tool, it might not be the best choice.
Ubersuggest is a versatile tool that excels in keyword research more than in other areas.
Ubersuggest offers a good toolset for keyword research. This includes historical data on search volume, multiple types of keyword suggestions, competitor analysis, and content idea generation based on keywords.
It also has site audit, rank tracking, and backlink analysis tools.
Ubersuggest can compete with Ahrefs in terms of keyword research. Both tools offer an extensive database of keywords to suggest and analyze. But Ubersuggest is not much of an Ahrefs competitor when it comes to backlink analysis.
A 7-day trial is available. Pricing for different plans is between $12 and $40 per month. Lifetime deals are from $120 to $400.
Great keyword research tools.
Basic SEO toolset.
Affordable tool.
Poor rank tracker.
No content optimization features.
Ubersuggest is a great Ahrefs alternative if you need an affordable keyword research tool. In other areas, it’s not the best.
Moz provides a suite of SEO tools that compare well with Ahrefs.
Moz offers all of the SEO tools you might need, from keyword research to backlink analysis. It has some unique metrics like spam score and ways to discover backlink opportunities like link intersect.
Both Moz and Ahrefs web crawler bots are up in the top 20 in activity according to Cloudflare. This means these two tools have some of the biggest databases in the industry. Moz has slightly more data on backlinks and Ahrefs has more data on keywords and SERPs.
Moz has slightly more affordable pricing but also can’t offer generous account limits.
A 30-day trial is available. The pricing ranges between $49 and $299 per month.
Ranks among leaders in data quality.
An all-around SEO tool.
Competitive pricing.
Low limits in cheaper plans.
Moz and Ahrefs have a pretty good tie in most areas. At the end of the day, the decision whether it’s the best Ahrefs alternative for you comes down to personal preferences.
SEMrush is a solid competitor to Ahrefs. It offers a robust suite of SEO tools and additional features for other digital marketing channels.
The biggest benefit of using SEMrush is the SEO toolset. It provides all the standard SEO tools like keyword research, backlink analysis, rank tracking, site audits, and more. The tools are on par with Ahrefs in terms of quality and have some unique features too. For instance, SEMrush offers metrics like topical authority and a keyword difficulty metric personalized to your website.
It also offers tools for content marketing, social media marketing, and local SEO. They’re provided either as add-ons or are available in pricier plans, though.
SEMrush has a pretty close tie with Ahrefs in terms of the number and quality of SEO tools. On average, SEMrush may find slightly more backlinks. It also provides more useful keyword research metrics and does rank tracking more frequently for the same price.
In terms of pricing, Ahrefs and SEMrush are also almost identical. SEMrush is $10 more expensive for the low tier, with pricing plans between $139 and $499 monthly. There’s a 7-day free trial. Considering that it doesn’t do pay-per-usage pricing and stops at the price of the plan, it’s a bit more affordable than Ahrefs in the end.
Useful unique features.
Great SEO and digital marketing tools.
More competitive pricing than Ahrefs.
Some features are priced as add-ons.
Pricier than other Ahrefs competitors.
Considering the lack of pay-per-usage pricing, SEMrush is a solid Ahrefs competitor for mid-sized and large companies that want a similar tool for a similar or slightly lower price.
Further read: 10 Best Semrush Alternatives & Competitors For 2025
SEO PowerSuite offers an all-around SEO toolset, mostly useful for freelancers and small companies.
SEO PowerSuite offers tools that help with keyword research, backlink analysis, rank tracking, and website audits — all you may need for standard SEO needs. It also has a good range of tools for local SEO. The backlink analysis toolset offers features that help not only with analytics but also with link building.
The quality of and volume of data you’ll get with Ahrefs is going to be better than with SEO PowerSuite. But it also has a lot of redeeming features. It provides more versatile tools for a much lower price and has some additional unique features like link building capabilities.
SEO PowerSuite offers a free forever plan. The paid plans will set you back $60 and $140 per month. The annual discount brings it down to $29 and $49 per month, which is cheaper than the lowest tier of Ahrefs.
Unlimited data for a fixed price.
Affordable local SEO.
Downloadable software.
Potentially less data than with Ahrefs.
SEO PowerSuite is a good Ahrefs alternative for smaller companies, agencies, and freelancers who are looking for a versatile and affordable SEO tool.
WebCEO offers a basic SEO toolkit and the option to integrate with other SEO tools and Google software natively.
WebCEO provides the standard tools for SEO: backlink analysis, keyword research, rank tracking, and website audit. It also has a suite of local SEO tools and the content submission tool to help with link building.
Ahrefs has better data and provides more insight into its tools. WebCEO is great in that its plans and data usage are better priced and it offers integrations with other tools.
There’s a 14-day trial for the low-tier plan. Pricing is between $119 and $299 per month. For users who need more data, there’s a $99 per month agency plan that includes pay-per-use pricing.
Integration with Moz and Majestic.
Affordable basic SEO tools.
No unlimited data usage.
WebCEO is a good Ahrefs alternative for agencies and companies with fluctuating SEO needs who have to run a lot of basic reports.
Mangools is a versatile SEO tool that can compete with Ahrefs in the number of tools and affordability.
Mangools offers all the standard SEO tools for keyword research and backlink analysis. It also offers unique features like AI SERP rater, SERP volatility checker, and share of search checker. Overall, it’s a pretty versatile toolset.
Mangools and Ahrefs offer pretty similar toolsets, with some unique features being different. Ahrefs has a more extensive crawling database, but Mangools is a lot more affordable.
The pricing ranges from $49 to $129 per month. There’s a limited trial and a 48-hour money-back guarantee for all plans.
Affordable basic SEO toolset.
Useful unique tools.
Affordable pricing.
Smaller database than Ahrefs.
Mangools is a decent Ahrefs alternative for organizations that need a versatile and affordable tool, even if it doesn’t provide as much quality data.
Serpstat offers a suite of SEO tools that can rival Ahrefs in data accuracy and usability.
Serpstat toolset covers all the basic SEO needs. It includes tools for keyword research, backlink analysis, rank tracking, and website audit. There’s also an AI content creation tool. Serpstat is great for API usage and provides several API plans.
Serpstat has a smaller database than Ahrefs, but in practice, many users report getting similar data with both tools in keyword and backlink analysis.
Pricing ranges from $59 to $479. There are multiple API access plans.
All-around SEO toolset.
Data accuracy is comparable with Ahrefs.
The keyword research tool is worse than Ahrefs.
Overall, Serpstat is a good, affordable Ahrefs alternative, even if it may lack in some departments.
Sitechecker is an SEO tool that focuses on on-page and technical optimization rather than off-page SEO.
Most importantly, Sitechecker doesn’t have a dedicated backlink analysis tool. It excels in on-page SEO, though. Sitechecker offers features that many of its competitors lack, for instance, extracting all links from a specific page or generating content ideas.
Its site audits have more insight than most other tools too. They show ways the site would show up on mobile devices, SERP snippets, PageSpeed insights, and other metrics on top of the industry-standard technical SEO scan.
Sitechecker has a better site audit dashboard than Ahrefs but doesn’t have competitive insight tools.
The pricing ranges from $59 to $349. There’s an option to purchase usage credits without a subscription. You can test the tool with a 14-day trial and a 48-hour money-back guarantee.
Great website audit tool.
Decent rank tracker tool.
It’s not an all-around tool.
Sitechecker is a good tool for site auditing and rank tracking. However, you’ll need another tool for backlink analysis if you decide to use it.
What’s the best Ahrefs competitor? If you’re looking for an all-around reliable platform, choose SE Ranking. Majestic would be a good choice if you mostly need backlink analytics capabilities. Ubersuggest is great for keyword research for beginners. Sitechecker is great for rank tracking, but lacks backlink analysis features.
Both Moz and SEMrush are comparable to Ahrefs pretty closely, with Moz having an advantage in backlink analytics, and SEMrush in flexible pricing. Serpstat is also a close competitor, despite having a bit fewer features.
SEO PowerSuite, WebCEO, and Mangools are great for being affordable, even though they don’t have nearly as many features as Ahrefs.
Ultimately, the choice depends on multiple factors that are unique to every business. Keep your long-term business goals in mind and pick a tool that aligns with them and provides the best value for the money.
Further read: SaaS SEO: A Complete Guide from My 10 Years of Experience
Irina is a Founder at ONSAAS, Growth Lead at Aura, and a SaaS marketing consultant. She helps companies to grow their revenue with SEO and inbound marketing. In her spare time, Irina entertains her cat Persie and collects airline miles.
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