← SEO Score API
Ahrefs is a full-suite SEO platform — backlinks, keywords, content, audits, rank tracking. It is excellent at what it does, but at $129+ per month it is overkill if you only need automated audits or you want to wire SEO checks into code. Below are alternatives organized by what you actually need.
Alternatives by use case
If you want audits programmatically (developers, CI/CD, AI agents)
- SEO Score API. $0 free, $5+ / mo. API-first, JSON in ~2s, GitHub Action and Python/Node SDKs included. — learn more
- DataForSEO. Pay-as-you-go API for SERP, on-page, backlinks. Powerful but raw — you assemble the workflow.
If you need deep technical crawls
- Screaming Frog SEO Spider. $259/yr desktop crawler. Best-in-class for deep site-wide audits.
- Sitebulb. Crawler with stronger reporting and prioritized issues. Desktop and cloud.
If you want a full suite at lower cost
- Moz Pro. $99+/mo. Domain Authority, keyword research, link tracking, audits.
- SEMrush. $139+/mo. Direct Ahrefs competitor with broader marketing tools.
- Ubersuggest. $29+/mo. Budget option from Neil Patel's team.
So which should you pick?
If you spend most of your Ahrefs time on site audits and you'd rather get JSON your code can act on, SEO Score API is the cheapest, fastest path. If you rely on Ahrefs for backlinks, keyword research, or rank tracking, no API-first tool will fully replace it. For a direct feature-by-feature breakdown, see SEO Score API vs Ahrefs.