Ahrefs is undeniably one of the most reliable SEO tools in 2024. Still, many yearn for Ahrefs alternatives given its recent changes. The service bumped up its prices by a considerable margin while simultaneously reducing the amount of credits you get. This essentially forces you to pay way more to get more credits, which are vital to using Ahrefs’ features. As said, this service is phenomenal but its insolent pricing is what makes people seek the best Ahrefs alternatives.
In this article, we’re focusing on them. The alternatives we tested and still use to this day. Many of them will be better than this provider but admittedly, many lower-tier options won’t. We can promise you that most of them will be cheaper too!
Therefore, if you’re tired of paying for additional credits and want something to save your money, you’re going to be pleased. Let us get straight into it and see what are the closest Ahrefs competitors that you can try immediately.
6 Best Alternatives to Ahrefs in 2024
- Semrush – Best alternative to Ahrefs
- SE Ranking – Cheapest Ahrefs alternative
- Mangools – A budget tool with great features
- Moz Pro – Great all-around SEO solution
- Serpstat – World-Class SEO Audit tool
- SpyFu – Reliable alternative to analyze competitors
Best Ahrefs Alternatives in 2024 – Our Detailed List
If you need an SEO tool to track your ranking, perform on-site SEO, improve your backlinking game, or spy on your competitors, we recommend these 6 alternatives to Ahrefs.
Our honest advice is to get Semrush and enjoy its 14-day free trial because it’s the #1 Ahrefs competitor. However, if you’d rather read our opinions on each pick from the list, you can do so before making a final decision.
1. Semrush
Semrush is the best Ahrefs alternative if you’re dissatisfied with the latter. It’s a tool you can use for proper keyword research and gaining new information about each keyword. Moreover, Semrush supports backlink research with impeccable on-page SEO features.
This means you can optimize your content promptly and ensure all backlinks are healthy. We like Semrush’s rank tracking option, which updates ranking information daily. On the flip side, Ahrefs updates its ranking data weekly, which is a major downside.
As the best Ahrefs competitor, Semrush offers the Keyword Magic Tool. Its database of 20 billion keywords helps you get information like search intent, difficulty, and volume. Semrush includes SERP analysis, which perfectly complements competitive research.
Additionally, you can analyze your traffic and audit the website for potential errors and performance issues. Semrush is particularly in-depth here, as it’ll examine every nook and cranny to ensure the website works as intended. This makes it an ideal ally for boosting your site’s SEO.
The interface is top-notch and users will have no trouble getting around its feature-rich menus. Yet, it looks way better than Ahrefs and is smoother. Granted, Ahrefs and Semrush are similar in the number and quality of features – neck and neck almost.
However, Ahrefs can be opulent even compared to Semrush which already isn’t the cheapest. As said, however, you can start your 14-day trial on Semrush and even save 17% on the entire cost by opting for its annual plans.
For more information, check out our review of Semrush.
2. SE Ranking
SE Ranking’s value for the money is impeccable, making it one of the better Ahrefs alternatives in 2024. The tool is affordable and offers an impressive pack of features, such as domain analysis, website audits, and keyword grouping.
Like Semrush, it’s a full-on SEO tool with everything you need. Ahrefs is a bit better at page crawling but you’ll find its backlink checker equally impressive. We like that SE Ranking provides numerous backlink opportunities to help you rank better.
Also, there’s the rank tracker option to stay in touch with your ranking and receive accurate data about it. Not to mention its Report Builder tool, which enables you to make custom reports and schedule them in advance, having them ready at a given moment.
SE Ranking’s competitor analysis is impressive too. Metrics like referring domains, the number of keywords the domain is ranking for, and others are here. SE Ranking is awesome at keyword research, letting you see information like difficulty, volume, and related phrases.
This allows you to receive questions related to the keyword and gain higher topical authority in a specific niche. SE Ranking is one of the best Ahrefs alternatives even price-wise. To be honest, you’ll find it much cheaper than Ahrefs at just $44 a month for the cheapest plan.
In addition, there’s a 14-day trial without the need to provide credit card info. In comparison, Ahrefs has NO free trial offer and instead, starts at $99, which is way more expensive. For more information, make sure to read our full SE Ranking review.
3. Mangools
The third tool we recommend as an alternative to Ahrefs is Mangools. To be precise, it’s rather a set of 5 SEO tools rather than one specific tool. While KWFinder is the most popular for keyword research, Mangools offers SERPChecker for comprehensive SERP analysis.
LinkMiner should also be mentioned as a full-fledged backlink analysis tool. You can use it to detect all backlinks on the site and even discover DoNotFollow and DoFollow links. Mangools keeps things straight and simple even though it’s full of valuable data.
The SERPWatcher tool is great for tracking ranks and finding out more about the performance index. KWFinder can help to find even long-tail keywords and there’s the option to organize your keywords in bulk to have them ready when you need them.
Mangools is below but very close to Ahrefs quality-wise. With 5 SEO tools, you don’t have as much leeway compared to Ahrefs, which is almost on the level of Semrush. Still, we’d like to accentuate Mangools’ beautiful interface and the ability to use it for free.
The free account is extremely limited but at least it’s there. Not to mention all 5 tools are free as well, as long as you don’t go overboard with your requests. Price-wise, you can expect Mangools to be wallet-friendly more so than any option here.
SpyFu is a cheaper Ahrefs alternative but this one starts at a speck below $20 a month. The Premium plan at under $45 a month with 500 keywords to analyze a day and 3 extra seats. The Agency plan at $89 is the most expensive and with 5 seats, it’s worth exploring.
4. Moz Pro
Moving on, Moz Pro is another competitor of Ahrefs we’d like to mention. For us, Ahrefs proved to be better overall but Moz Pro has a few tricks on its sleeve. Namely, it’s great for automated reporting and customizable reports that you can export in XLS or CSV.
Another benefit is the presence of many vital bits of data, such as domain authority, spam score, and other site-audit-related values. Moz Pro lets you discover new backlink opportunities too and we like its focus on local SEO, which helps improve local rankings.
This tool will provide a heap of keyword suggestions in its keyword research tool. We like its focus on long-tail keywords too, which help better describe your page concerning the main keyword. What about page crawling?
Well, Moz Pro is indeed capable of it and we like that even the cheapest plan can crawl thousands of pages. Ahrefs can do that as well but you’ll have to pay more. Users also enjoy its page optimization, thanks to many on-page SEO solutions from Moz Pro.
It provides a couple of suggestions to fix the issues and explains how and why to do that. No doubt, Moz Pro will allow you to rank higher on a myriad of search engines. Speaking of which, Ahrefs supports more search engines and is a bit better at broken link discovery.
On the brighter side, Moz Pro allows for a 30-day free trial. The highest you’ll get out of all SEO tools. Plus, there are a handful of free SEO tools that you can use without registration. Price-wise, it’s a tad cheaper as well as long as you stick to lower-tier deals.
5. Serpstat
Serpstat can replace Ahrefs if you don’t mind its fewer features. Rest assured, however, Serpstat offers options like keyword research, competitor analysis, and site audit. We love its ability to discover high-ranking keywords for PPC campaigns, for example.
Simultaneously, Serpstat is frequently used to group keywords in clusters, according to their similarity. Another great Serpstat feature is the ability to generate content with an AI. It’ll help craft meta tags, paragraphs, and titles to drive more traffic to the website.
Serpstat is easy to use and we like its intuitive interface. Furthermore, the tool’s keyword research function is surprisingly in-depth, alas, with fewer bits of information compared to Ahrefs. On the other hand, you’ll like its ad research.
It allows you to discover paid keywords and anchors frequently used in competitors’ PPC campaigns. Needless to say, tools like backlink analysis and API access are here but we especially like its rank tracker with daily updates, which is better than Ahrefs.
Serpstat can crawl your pages if you’re looking to audit your site. Even the cheapest Individual plan can scan up to 5,000 pages in one go. Other notable features of this Ahrefs alternative include scheduled reports, SERP crawling, and live chat support.
Serpstat is undoubtedly cheaper than Ahrefs. At only $50 a month, you can get the Individual plan, for example. Our recommended deal is the Team plan at $100 a month with 3 user seats, priority support, and 500 keywords to track.
6. SpyFu
If you’d rather analyze your competition than your website, SpyFu is a rather excellent alternative to Ahrefs. The tool will analyze competitors’ PPC and organic keywords, allowing you to monitor their rankings for a greater understanding of the market.
Our team likes SpyFu because it’s affordable, yet, offers a wide variety of SEO tools to play with. You can, for example, find ad variations of specific keywords as well as the keywords bought by your competitors on Google Ads.
Another benefit is the option to track domains and keywords on Yahoo, Bing, and Google, so three search engines are in play. Ahrefs supports more, again, but costs way more as well. SpyFu supports backlinks and competitor research that works well for the price.
Rank tracking is impeccable with daily updates and more expensive plans support up to 15 years of historical data. SpyFu’s Basic plan allows for up to 10,000 search results, whether we’re talking about domains or keywords.
All plans come with custom SEO reports that you can schedule in advance. SpyFu can be a free tool for SEO and each plan can be tested for free. Yet, despite its starting price of just $16 a month, SpyFu offers a non-conditional 30-day money-back guarantee.
As an Ahrefs competitor, SpyFu does a stellar job of replacing it. However, Ahrefs is still ahead regarding site audit, keyword research, and backlink analysis. SpyFu offers no site audit function, which might be a red flag for some.
Why Use Ahrefs Alternatives?
When seeking the most advanced SEO tools, Ahrefs and Semrush are up there with Moz Pro. Ahrefs has everything you need and more but as long as you shell out a hefty sum of money. In 2024, the service is even more expensive than it used to be.
The Lite plan, which was $79 quickly rose to $99 a month, for example. Another problem is its credit system. Ahrefs will take 1 credit from you for pretty much the simplest things. One example is opening the report, which costs 1 credit.
The more you use Ahrefs, the more it ends up costing you, as you have to purchase additional credits most of the time. Even without these credits, Ahrefs alternatives are often sought because of its opulence.
The Advanced plan at $399 a month sounds very expensive and the Enterprise plan at $999 a month is even more so. That’s without optional add-ons that will increase the price dramatically. It’s a shame that Ahrefs’ rank tracking is underwhelming as well.
Whilst Semrush updates its data daily, Ahrefs does so every week. For a service of this caliber, it’s unforgivable. It’s no wonder many use different rank-tracking tools than Ahrefs given its rather unsatisfying overall performance in this regard.
Best Ahrefs Competitors: The Final Word
If you’re looking for a superior Ahrefs alternative, Semrush and SE Ranking should be your choices. Semrush is the best option overall but SE Ranking is pretty close. We’d also say to go for Mangools and its forever-free plan if you don’t mind slightly inferior performance.
Our team doesn’t recommend SEO tools with specific functions only because they can’t replace Ahrefs properly. As long as you’re opting for all-around solutions, you can expect to replace it in the majority of cases.
As it stands, the two aforementioned picks fit the bill perfectly, whilst Mangools, Moz Pro, Serpstat, and SpyFu are secondary options.
