Ahrefs is undoubtedly one of the best all in one SEO tools which offer a lot of features such as keyword explorer, site explorer, backlink checker etc.
In fact, they have a HUGE data for over 150 million keywords in the US alone along with 150+ other countries.
But if you’re searching for a few other cheaper (or better) Ahrefs alternatives, this post is for you where you’ll find 15 of the best free and paid alternatives to Ahrefs.
So without further ado, let’s find out the list of top Ahrefs competitors and similar to Ahrefs tool to use in 2020.
15 Best Ahrefs Alternatives for All SEOs, Marketers and Bloggers
1. SEMrush: Grab 30 Days FREE Trial (Worth $99.95)
Hands down SEMrush is one of the best Ahrefs alternatives. It offers you a huge collection of SEO tools including;
- Keyword research
- Brand monitoring
- Backlink analysis
- Site audits
- Competitor analysis
- And the list goes on
We’re using SEMrush SEO tool for more than 4 years now and we’re extremely satisfied with it. If you’re looking for an all in one SEO toolkit, SEMrush is the best choice for you.
SEMrush offers 3 pricing plans which include:
- Pro starts at $99.95 monthly
- Guru starts at $199.95 monthly
- Business starts at $399.95 monthly
Here’s how the dashboard of SEMrush looks like;
So what are you waiting for?
Click on this special link to grab 30 days free trial from SEMrush (worth $99.95)
Pros:
- All in one SEO toolkit where you can get access to almost all the SEO related tasks including keyword research, site audits, competitor research and so on
- Easily track the broken links
- You can effectively find all the technical and SEO related issues using their site audit feature
- Compare your domain with up to 5 domains (and find who’s ranking well and who’s not)
- Track your keyword rankings
- SEMrush is widely used by over 4 million people around the world
- You can find and estimate traffic of any website in the world
- You can easily find profitable keywords in any niche
- Track your brand mentions
- A great SEO toolkit which is mostly similar to Ahrefs (in terms of features)
- Reporting as SEMrush offers a ton of automated reports
Cons:
- It takes some time to get used to all their SEO tools and their traffic predictions are sometimes inaccurate (especially for keywords with fewer searches)
2. Serpstat: Get 2 Months For FREE!
Serpstat is another all in one SEO platform which is similar to Ahrefs and you can use to explore your competitors and growth marketing strategies along with keyword research, content marketing ideation, search analytics and so on.
Here’s the pricing structure of Serpstat which is a great Ahrefs competitor.
As you can see above, their plans are affordable and if you’re looking for affordable Ahrefs competitor sites, Serpstat is definitely for you.
Pros:
- Automatically identify your top competitors where you should enter your domain to get a full list of your most relevant competitors
- You can perform batch analysis of up to 200 domains where you can research keywords and compare the rankings of multiple domains
- Get search suggestions database for content creation
- Easily identify your competitors in AdWords
- Research keywords and ads of your competitors
- Identify your direct competitors organically
- Quickly discover your competitor’s keyword rankings
Cons:
- Keyword data is not so much inaccurate such as keyword difficulty, keyword search volume etc
3. KWFinder: Save 40% With Annual Plans
KWFinder is a set of tools from Mangools Tools which helps you easily discover profitable keywords along with competitor keyword research with low SEO difficulty. It offers an amazing keyword metric called KD (keyword difficulty) which lets you find and use low competitive keywords.
Here’s the pricing structure of KWFinder (you’ll get access to all the Mangools tools along with KWFinder tool).
Pros:
- You can easily discover a ton of long tail keywords
- Discover and analyse your competitor’s keywords
- Google Suggest keyword source
- You can quickly organize all your keywords with keyword lists
- The ability to import keywords in bulk which is extremely useful when you conduct keyword research in batches
- Local keyword research can be done
- Offers you a keyword difficulty (KD) score which is helpful in finding low difficulty keywords to rank in Google search results
- Search volume and keyword metrics
- Offers you SERP analysis and SEO metrics
- It is also considered as one of the best Keyword Planner alternatives
Cons:
- Limited keyword lookups, competitor keyword search, site lookups, SERP lookups within 24 hours (even with their premium plans)
4. SpyFu: Starts At Just $33/mo
Want to find every keyword your competitors have bought on Google Ads, every keyword they organically rank and every ad variation in the last 13 years? Then, give a try to SpyFu as it’s the most comprehensive competitor keyword research tool and a great alternative to Ahrefs.
Here’s the pricing of SpyFu.
They also have a “Team plan” starting at $199 per month which is suitable for teams. Make sure to check out their site for more information.
Pros:
- Perform detailed keyword research and discover all your competitors keywords
- Track your keyword rankings easily
- Monitor your paid and SEO rankings on Google, Bing and Yahoo
- Track all of your competitors and download their PPC along with SEO keywords
- Analyze backlinks quickly
- Affordable pricing options when compared to other premium tools like Ahrefs or SEMrush
- The ability to build custom reports
- You can also get unlimited access to last 13 years of historical keyword data
Cons:
- It only shows you PPC details of Google Ads and no Facebook, Bing or other PPC ad platforms
5. SERankings: Get 20% Off Annually
If you’re looking for an all in one SEO toolkit at affordable prices, you can give a try to SERankings as they have almost every feature ranging from keyword research to website audits to SEO competitor research.
Here are their pricing plans.
Pros:
- Keyword rank tracker to track your keyword rankings
- Website audit to find and fix your site issues
- Backlink monitoring
- On-page checker for better optimization of your posts and pages
- Marketing plan
- Keyword grouper
- Keyword suggestion tool for keyword research
- SEO/PPC competitor research
- Backlink checker to build quality and relevant links
Cons:
- Although their pricing plans are affordable when compared to tools like Ahrefs it’s not comprehensive as Ahrefs, SEMrush and so on.
6. WebCEO: Free 14-day Trial
WebCEO offers you a full-fledged collection of several SEO tools which can be used for keyword research, SEO audits, keyword rank tracking, backlink analysis, lead generation, white reports and so on.
Here’s their pricing structure.
Pros:
- Access to local rank tracking
- You can integrate their tools with Google Analytics & Search Console easily
- The ability to perform in-depth keyword research
- Mobile optimization check to find whether your site is properly optimized for mobile or not
- Page Speed test to help you find your page loading times
- Competitor metrics to analyse your competitors
- Automatic report emailing
- Social media popularity analysis
- Internal links optimization
- Access to email alerts
Cons:
- Limits are limited (be it keyword usage, SERP scan depth etc)
7. Serped: Get 3 Months Free
If you’re looking for better alternatives to Ahrefs, Serped can be a great choice. Serped is a collection of over 40 SEO tools ranging from keyword research to competitor analysis to backlink research, rank tracking, reporting and so on.
It also exclusively offers a chrome extension along with a WordPress plugin where you can get the metrics of any website, find a lot of keyword ideas, evaluate the level of difficulty of any keyword that you want to rank for.
Serped pricing structure is mentioned below.
Side note: You can get 3 months free when you pay annually!
Pros:
- Keyword research, keyword analyser and the ability to find low competitive long tail keywords
- Access to domain finding tools such as expired domain finder, aged domain finder etc
- Access to client acquisition tools like Site Auditor Pro, Citation Scanner, Mobile Prospector etc
- Access to Link Indexer
- You’ll also get access to Index Checker
- Access to Site Explorer to deeply analyse any domain
- Bulk URL Analyzer helps you analyse a ton of URLs at once
- Access to Backlinks Manager
- Access to Web Analytics
- Access to Uptime Monitor
- Access to rank tracking to track all your keyword rankings
- Access to reporting where you can get fully customizable PDF reports
Cons:
- Their pricing plans are bit expensive (not as much when compared to Ahrefs though)
8. BuzzSumo: Get a 7 Day Free Trial
If you want to quickly discover content ideas for your business and discover highly influential people such as bloggers & influencers in your niche, BuzzSumo is the best tool for you.
To put it simply, BuzzSumo is a great Ahref competitor which can be used as a research and monitoring tool which helps you find the most popular content in every industry and identify influencers.
Here are the pricing plans of BuzzSumo.
Pros:
- Extremely easy to use (even for beginners)
- The ability to easily find top performing content ideas in almost any niche
- The ability to monitor your brand online
- You can easily find influencers in any industry
- Access to question analyzer where you can find the most popular questions asked on the forums, Quora and son on
- The ability to search back between 1 and 5 years on their Content Search & Analysis reports
- Compare and analyze domains
- Find the top authors for any topic or domain
- You can run unlimited Content Research and Influencer searches
- Access to alerts where you can easily monitor your brand, competitors, backlinks and keywords
Cons:
- Their pricing plans are expensive (similar to Ahrefs pricing though, but Ahrefs offers a wide range of SEO tools when compared to the limited tools offered by BuzzSumo)
9. Raven Tools: Try It Free for 7 Days
Raven Tools is another excellent Ahrefs alternative which is a combination of several amazing SEO tools ranging from rank tracking to competitor research to link building manager. If you’re looking to get access to white label SEO reports and an amazing set of SEO tools, you should definitely consider Raven Tools.
Here are the pricing plans of Raven Tools.
Pros:
- Access to website audits
- Backlink analysis where you can get access to backlink tools
- Rank tracking for tracking your keywords
- Marketing reports
- Competitor research to analyse any competitor in the world
- Link building manager
- Keyword rank checker to check your keyword rankings
- Access to automated social media marketing reports for Facebook, Twitter & LinkedIn
Cons:
- Definitely, their pricing plans are expensive although you get access to tools like Keyword Rank Position Checks, Majestic Backlink and LinkSpy analysis units etc
10. Keywords Everywhere
Keywords Everywhere is an incredible browser add-on which is available for both Google Chrome and Firefox. It helps you with keyword search volume, CPC, competition data on 15+ websites and so on.
Pros:
- Easily find the average of the total searches that people have performed for your desired keyword per month over the last 12 months
- Access to CPC data
- Get “People Also Search For” data along with volume metrics
- Extremely fast and you can use the tool on the go while browsing on Google
Cons:
- It was a free tool before. But it’s now a paid tool where you need to purchase credits to use their tool to get keyword data (1 credit gets you the volume, cpc and competition data for one keyword. For instance, if you import 100 keywords, you will use up 100 credits).
11. Wordtracker: Grab 7-Day Free Trial
If you are serious about finding traffic generating keywords and looking to generate more traffic to your site, Wordtracker is for you. You can also better understand what your target audience is looking for using this tool.
The great thing about Wordracker is it’s affordable pricing as you can get thousands of keyword ideas from 200+ territories starting at just $27 per month and each plan comes with a 7-day free trial.
Here’s their pricing list.
Pros:
- Keyword tool which helps you easily find new keywords for your market
- Inspect tool which helps you quickly discover your competitors’ keywords
- Niche explorer that helps you identify trending keywords for any niche
- Custom reports so you can get the top keywords for any search engine and country
- The ability to find competitors’ keywords, in-depth PPC and SEO insights
Cons:
- Not as fully comprehensive as other competitor research tools like SEMrush, Ahrefs and so on
12. Moz Pro: Get 30 Days Free Trial
There are a ton of bloggers and SEOs who use Moz tools for checking metrics like DA and PA every single day. If you’re looking for premium sites like Ahrefs, Moz is an ultimate choice for you and Moz also has a premium set of SEO toolkit that helps you with crawl and audit your sites, discover link building goals, explore on-page optimization opportunities and so on.
Here’s the Moz Pro pricing.
Pros:
- You can easily rack any site’s organic visibility in SERPs
- Assess all the desktop and mobile visibility of your site
- Target highly profitable keywords
- Access to link profile analysis where you can also discover link opportunities from competitors
- You can easily track overall organic visits along with organic rankings
- Find out any site’s domain authority (DA) and page authority scores easily
- Made by SEO experts for SEOs
- They have a HUGE SEO community where you can get a ton of information and insights on using the tool
Cons:
- Access to fewer features than the remaining tools such as Ahrefs, SEMrush etc
- A bit difficult for beginners to use and get used to their tools
13. Ubersuggest (Free)
If you are looking for free alternative to Ahrefs, Ubersuggest is a great choice for you. It’s completely free to use and there’s no sign up required.
The latest version of Ubersuggest also lets you see how many people search for a keyword on a mobile device versus a desktop device which is really an incredible feature.
Pros:
- Completely free to use
- Generate a lot of keyword ideas you want no matter what niche you are in
- Extremely easy to use as it has a great user interface
- You can search by country which is great for local SEO research
- You can easily see the age range of the searchers or how many times they click on the paid results versus SEO results
- Gives you a ton of information such as SEO Difficulty Score, Search Volume, SERP Results, Keyword Filters and so on
Cons:
- The data (keyword data or search volume) is not much accurate when compared to other paid tools including the remaining alternatives to Ahrefs mentioned here
14. Google Keyword Planner (Free)
If you’re using Google Ads or thinking about using PPC ads to find relevant keywords to grow your business, Google Keyword Planner is worth giving a try. If you’re looking for a free alternative to Ahrefs just for the keyword research part, Keyword Planner can be a great choice for beginners.
It’s a keyword research tool developed by Google and completely free to use (you just need to login using your GMail account). Here’s how it looks like;
Pros:
- Easily find the keywords that are most relevant
- Gives you suggested bid estimates for each keyword (that way you can easily find out your ad budget if you’re looking to promote using PPC ads)
- You can estimate average monthly search for each keyword
- You can also find how competitive a keyword is
Cons:
- Most of the keyword data is not accurate as most of the paid tools
- The biggest disadvantage is its average monthly searches feature as it doesn’t show accurate results (just gives you an estimate search volume)
15. Keywordtool.io (Free)
KeywordTool.io is the best alternative to Google’s keyword planner. If you want to find long tail keywords for search engines like Google, Bing, Yahoo or social platforms like YouTube, Instagram etc, KeywordTool.io can be a great tool for finding keywords.
Pros:
- You can get up to 750 long tail keyword suggestions for every search term in any niche you are in
- Unlike Keyword Planner or other similar free keyword research tools, KeywordTool.io is mostly reliable
- You don’t even have to create an account to use this tool and it’s absolutely for free
- You can also get questions for your desired keywords (extremely useful if you want to rank for featured snippets or “People also search for” section)
- You can also get prepositions for your selected keywords
Cons:
- Search volume, trends, competition and CPC data is only available in their PRO version (using free account, you can only get long tail keyword suggestions)
- It’s only meant for keyword research and it’s NOT an all in one SEO toolkit unlike Ahrefs, SEMrush etc.
FAQs About Ahrefs Alternatives And Competitors
Here’s a list of some of the frequently asked questions about Ahrefs alternatives and some of its alternative SEO tools.
Is Ahrefs free?
No, Ahrefs is NOT a free tool. But they offer a 7 day trial for $7 which you can avail from here. If you want to learn why your competitors are getting top rankings in Google (everything from finding keyword data to backlinks), you can use Ahrefs.
Is SEMrush free?
No, SEMrush is not a free tool but you can grab their 30 day exclusive pro account trial for free using the following link.
Click here to get a 30 day free account of SEMrush Pro account (Worth $99.95)
What’s the best free keyword research tool?
There are a ton of keyword research tools out there but there are only a couple of free tools that are actually worth spending your time. They include;
- Ubersuggest
- KeywordTool.io
- Google Keyword Planner
Check out a few more ultimate SEO tools alternatives:
Final thoughts on Ahrefs competitors and its top alternatives
It doesn’t matter whether you are looking for sites like Ahrefs or free tools but picking one SEO tool that suits all your needs is a really daunting task. Some people want tools for keyword research purposes while others want all in one SEO toolkits.
So know what your SEO needs are (along with your monthly budget) before picking the RIGHT alternative to Ahrefs. We’ve compiled the best Ahrefs alternative tools to help you pick the right SEO tool for your needs.
If you’ve any questions, let us know in the comments.
Anil Agarwal who owns Bloggerspassion.com, is a full-time blogger and SEO expert who has been helping people build profitable websites for over a decade. Bloggers Passion has been featured on premium online sites like Forbes.com, Huffingtonpost, SEMrush, Problogger, Crazy Egg, The Next Web and so on.
Keep reading the article at BloggersPassion: Learn SEO Blogging with An Expert. The article was originally written by Anil Agarwal on 2019-12-19 08:02:58.
The article was hand-picked and curated for you by the Editorial Team of WP Archives.