6 Competitors to Consider [Free + Paid]

If you do a quick search online, you’ll find tons of Ahrefs alternatives. However, not all competitors can replace this mighty SEO software. Namely, Ahrefs stands as one of the top-performing SEO tools in 2024. This tells us it’s pretty hard to replace. Still, if you’ve come here looking for an alternative, you have your reasons. It might be its expensive price, underwhelming site audits, or infrequent 7-day rank tracking updates. This platform relies on the so-called “Credit” system, which quickly became notorious.

Users who want to work on their SEO have to spend more money on credits to use this service in the first place. That said, it’s understandable that Ahrefs alternatives might suit you or other users better. With that in mind, we crafted our list – keep reading.

Ahrefs’ Credit System Explained

Before presenting the best alternatives to Ahrefs, let’s address the elephant in the room – Ahrefs’ new pricing model. This platform relies on credits to perform all actions. Each subscription comes with a pre-determined number of credits needed for analyzing keywords, backlinks, and more.

For instance, opening a report costs 1 credit, which already puts you in the “meticulous” mode, as you’re trying to preserve your credits and spend them on “meaningful” actions only. To put it simply, the more you use Ahrefs, the more it’ll cost. It’s like a car, in a way.

Ahrefs was never an affordable tool to begin with but now, it’s even worse in this regard. According to many Reddit users, the “Credit” system became a glaring problem for many who stopped using this service and instead switched to Ahrefs alternatives.

The Lite plan comes with 500 credits per user, yet, it costs $108 a month, which means you can perform 500 actions only. Most users ended up paying additionally for MORE credits. Ahrefs offers one package of 500 credits for $50 a month, which is far from affordable.

To get unlimited credits, you’ll have to go for the Standard plan which costs $208 a month for the annual plan. It’s significantly more expensive compared to even better alternatives to Ahrefs, such as Semrush. Many users, including us, actually stopped using Ahrefs because of this.

One more thing is that Ahrefs updates ranking information weekly and you have to pay $100/mo for daily updates. This is another cash grab that put off many existing users and forced them to switch to other options displayed below.

Best Ahrefs Competitors & Alternatives of 2024 – Our Top 6

Given Ahrefs’ obvious qualities, we cherry-picked the SEO tools that will be at least as good or even better than this one. We’ll start with the Ahrefs alternatives that are superior and as we move down the list, we’ll include a few cheaper tools that can be a great substitute.

For those in a hurry, the best Ahrefs alternatives are:

Semrush – the best overall alternative to Ahrefs in 2024
SE Ranking – affordable Ahrefs competitor with excellent features
Mangools – budget-oriented SEO software
Moz Pro – great Ahrefs replacement for slightly less money
SpyFu – in-depth competitor & PPC analysis
Ubersuggest – a versatile and risk-free Ahrefs alternative

Let’s go through each Ahrefs competitor and see what makes each a worthy mention.

1. Semrush

Pros

Better site-auditing features than Ahrefs
Link-building tool
The Keyword Magic tool is great for keyword suggestions
Content Marketing tools
Generous 14-day free trial

Cons

Not the cheapest Ahrefs alternative
Slightly intimidating for beginners

If you’re after the best alternative to Ahrefs, here’s Semrush. This tool is characterized by a simplistic, yet info-filled interface to help you boost your SEO tremendously. Its Keyword Overview tool lets you gather more keyword data and see valuable suggestions.

Semrush’s Keyword Magic Tool is especially great for discovering LSI keywords and questions to cover the subject better. Unlike Ahrefs whose site audits are a weakness, Semrush’s equivalent rocks! Its site audit tool is fast and efficient.

This makes it easy to detect errors and discrepancies keeping you from ranking better on Google or any other search engine. Semrush encourages on-page SEO as well, so each page can be examined and fixed to meet your standards. What about content marketing?

Well, Semrush beats Ahrefs in this regard as well. Its SEO Writing Assistant is tremendous for improving content quality and the Topic Research finds plenty of new content ideas in a minute. Semrush can track 500 keywords in the cheapest plan, so it’s excellent value-wise.

Also, the service supports local SEO tools, along with a dedicated link-building tool with a CRM-like interface. This means you can reach out directly to a website, ask for a backlink, and ensure a higher ranking overnight. Semrush isn’t cheaper than Ahrefs – at first.

However, Ahrefs’ credit system makes it more expensive in the long run. The Pro plan starts at over $108 a month and it already includes an impressive set of tools. In addition, Semrush has a free plan and a 14-day free trial to test its premium offers.

More about the best Ahrefs competitor in our Semrush review.

Visit Semrush

2. SE Ranking

Pros

Excellent price (from $44/mo)
750 tracked keywords in the Basic plan
Ubiquitous Local SEO tools
Competitive Research
Daily ranking updates

Cons

Not the best link-building tool
It doesn’t include a free plan

SE Ranking is our second favorite alternative to Ahrefs. It’s extremely powerful, yet budget-oriented. The Basic plan at $44/mo is a steal deal compared to Ahrefs’ starting deal at $99. Moreover, SE Ranking lacks nothing in comparison. It’s easier to use, from the start.

Another perk is nifty Competitive Research for monitoring your organic competitors. We love its Keyword Research tool, which analyzes keyword difficulty, search intent, and volume. Like Semrush, it displays tons of useful keyword suggestions for better optimization.

SE Ranking’s rank-tracking tool is surprisingly profound. It updates information daily compared to Ahrefs’ weekly updates. Not to mention incredible accuracy in displaying search visibility, position changes, and organic traffic with the help of GSC.

In our tests, SE Ranking was more than great for site audits. It displays the most pressing issues first, letting you resolve them and improve the website’s performance. Local SEO features are there, which is paramount for improving local rankings.

We found SE Ranking to be superior to Ahrefs in content marketing. The content editor is akin to Semrush and lets you improve optimization, writing quality, punctuation, etc. However, there’s Content Idea Finder with keyword clusters and a mind map.

SE Ranking tracks 750 keywords in the Basic plan – identical to more expensive Ahrefs. A 14-day free trial is there without credit card info, so you can start for free right away. It lacks a free plan, however, but so does Ahrefs which also excludes any form of free trial.

Again, you’ll find more information about SE Ranking in our comprehensive analysis.

3. Mangools

Pros

Keyword research
Extremely affordable, at under $20/mo
One of the simplest-to-use SEO tools
SERPChecker allows for comprehensive SERP analysis

Cons

No site auditing
Only 50 tracked keywords in the cheapest plan

Mangools starts at under $20 a month and offers five amazing SEO tools. KWFinder, our obvious favorite, excels at keyword research and analysis. We then have SERPWatcher, which efficiently tracks your ranking and works incredibly fast. Mangools doesn’t stop there.

Backlink analysis is enabled by LinkMiner. It analyzes referring domains and other backlink parameters to fully divulge your backlink profile. For SERP analysis, there’s SERPChecker, which we frequently use to analyze opportunities for appearing in featured snippets.

Mangools’s final tool is SiteProfiler, which gathers all domain-related info in one tool and displays information intuitively. You’ll discover the number of ranking keywords, external links, and rankings in different regions. Mangools isn’t the most feature-rich, though.

Ahrefs offers site-auditing tools while Mangools lacks them. However, Mangools is so simple to use that you’ll have no issues even as a newbie. Mangools also crafted some of its plans for multiple users. For instance, the cheap Premium plan at $44.9/mo is one of them.

With 3 user seats, Mangools can be great for smaller start-up businesses. The entire roster starts with the Entry plan at $19.90, with 50 tracked keywords, 25 SERP lookups daily, and so on. Surprisingly, its Agency plan at $89.90/mo is pretty affordable.

It tracks unlimited domains and 1,500 keywords daily, with 5 seats in total. Mangools offers a free version of its 5 SEO tools, a 7-day free trial, and a 48-hour money-back guarantee. You won’t find a better alternative to Ahrefs at this price. Try it and you’ll see.

4. Moz Pro

Pros

Rank checker
Slightly cheaper than Ahrefs
MozBar (free browser extension)
It crawls 100,000 pages weekly in the Standard plan

Cons

No content marketing features
It’s not better than Ahrefs overall

Moz Pro is at #4 on this list because it’s good but not excellent. Still, it’s often mentioned as a reputable Ahrefs competitor because of its all-aroundness. Moz Pro includes all the features you’ll need, including keyword research, domain research, rank tracking, etc.

We found it handy for above-average needs when you need daily rank-tracking updates or comprehensive site audits. The problem with Moz Pro is its lack of innovation and updates. Semrush and SE Ranking excel in this, so they’re our favorites.

However, Moz Pro performs relatively well to be a reliable Ahrefs alternative. It updates rankings daily compared to weekly for Ahrefs. Website crawling speed is also great, which is welcome when you’re auditing a larger page or multiple pages simultaneously.

Our experience with Moz Pro was great for keyword research. It’s efficient at discovering long-tail keywords crucial for effective optimization. Domain research is in-depth and users can find more info about authority scores, backlinks, and ranking keywords.

Moz Pro can track 300 keywords in the Standard plan, which is underwhelming compared to 750 in SE Ranking and Ahrefs. However, its ability to crawl 100,000 pages a week is superior to Ahrefs’ 25,000, yet Moz Pro is slightly cheaper. Moz Pro is your run-of-the-mill tool.

Luckily, it offers everything you’ll need except for content marketing and capable local SEO tools. We’re delighted with its 30-day free trial and a handful of free SEO tools that you can use without registering. This makes Moz Pro a respectable Ahrefs alternative in 2024.

5. SpyFu

Pros

Great for PPC research
Easy spying on your competition
Works with Google, Yahoo, and Bing
Keyword Gap tool

Cons

Site auditing is lacking
Not the most versatile tool
Ahrefs is still better (but costs much more)

SpyFu is in no way better than Ahrefs but it’s way cheaper and still works well. This tool is paramount to competitor analysis and PPC research to help you stay on top of your game. SpyFu can analyze keywords as well, providing handy suggestions and other data.

Despite being affordable, SpyFu comes with a capable rank tracker with daily updates that you’ll find better than Ahrefs. Even better, its depth of information lets you see detailed data like the keywords your competitor bought on Google ads or ad variations.

Unlike many of its rivals that mostly focus on Google, SpyFu supports more search engines – Bing and Yahoo, for instance. Another perk is as a backlink builder tool, allowing you to carefully monitor your backlink profile and work on it to enhance your Google ranking.

SERP analysis and backlink/keyword gap tool enrich the experience additionally. SpyFu is all about monitoring and “spying” on your competition to gain an edge and overtake it with supreme SEO tactics. It lacks site-auditing tools, making it inferior to Ahrefs and Semrush.

SpyFu’s plans aren’t costly, as said, so the range starts at $33/mo for the annual plans. For instance, this plan has 6 months of historical data and 5,000 weekly tracked keyword rankings, which is the most out of all other Ahrefs alternatives.

Its Pro plan is the best-value option at just $37 a month. You get 10+ years of historical data and 10,000 tracked keyword rankings. Even the Professional plan at $58/mo is enticing, as this is the most expensive and capable plan with full API access for more versatility.

6. Ubersuggest

Pros

Incredibly-looking interface
Keyword Generator
Backlink Gap tool
Accurate traffic estimation

Cons

It could benefit from local SEO features
Short 7-day free trial
Its free plan is very limited

Neil Patel struck gold with Ubersuggest, positioning it as yet another great Ahrefs alternative in 2024. Ubersuggest will pull you in in seconds with an intuitive and good-looking interface. It includes all the necessary tools – site audits, keyword research, and others.

In particular, we love its content-oriented stuff like keyword ideas, content ideas, and keyword visualization. There’s also the keyword generator, which generates new keyword ideas based on the given domain. Ubersuggest isn’t as advanced as Ahrefs.

In our book, however, it’s incredible at displaying nice-looking data through comprehensive graphs for easier understanding. The site audit tool discovers the most stubborn issues and advises fixes. There’s traffic estimation that focuses on organic traffic and domain authority.

Ubersuggest includes rank tracking and updates information daily to keep you posted. Its dashboard displays all information about the domain as well, so you can monitor your progress and changes in one tab. Backlink analysis is on par with Ahrefs.

Apart from a simple overview, you’ll also explore backlink opportunities thanks to the backlink gap tool. Ubersuggest will suffice for the most part, even if you’re an SEO expert with more demands. Granted, it’s not for professional use like Semrush or Ahrefs.

But from what we’ve seen, Ubersuggest isn’t trying to be a professional-grade tool. Its Business plan at $49/mo screams affordability. There are also Lifetime plans that start at $490, with 150 tracked keywords, 2-user support, and a 7-day free trial.

Summary

If you’re feeling revolted by the new “Credit” system or underwhelming rank tracking, you have no other choice but to seek alternatives to Ahrefs. Our favorites are Semrush and SE Ranking, and in our experience, they’re superior in almost every sense.

Users who opt for Mangools and Moz Pro will be happy too. Mangools is a lot more pocket-friendly with Moz Pro being serviceable, with its marginally lower price. SpyFu is a capable option thanks to great competitor analysis and PPC research.

Finally, we have Ubersuggest with Neil Patel’s craftsmanship that exceeds in things like content marketing, site audits, and backlink opportunities. We discussed free and paid Ahrefs alternatives, as you see. All offer a nifty free trial.

This is in stark contrast to Ahrefs with a few free tools and no free trial options. If you want us to narrow your choices down, opt for Semrush or SE Ranking. They have 14-day free trials and reasonable prices to counter Ahrefs’ notoriously opulent nature.

Originally Appeared Here