SEMrush vs Ahrefs vs Ubersuggest : Which SEO Tool is Better and Why?
August 10, 2020
Sarvesh Bagla
Sometimes, performing SEO activities to improve your website’s ranking of search engine results pages (SERPs) and increase its traffic can be a little overwhelming.
Keyword search, site audits, bug fixing, and whatnot – so much goes into search engine optimization.
Now, what if there was a one-size-fits-all solution for this?
Many tools claim to be “the one” for you. But the truth is that each has its own set of specialties and drawbacks. So, it’s wise to use a combination of all of them.
In this post, we will draw a comparison of the hottest SEO tools – SEMrush, Ubersuggest, and Ahrefs to help you understand which tool serves better for which activity. We will first examine Ahrefs Vs SEMrush, and then compare each tool with Ubersuggest 2.0.
The Comparison: SEMrush vs Ahrefs vs Ubersuggest
While making an Ahrefs vs SEMrush comparison, we see that Ahrefs and SEMrush are quite similar with regard to features and functionalities, whereas Ubersuggest is a notably new and free tool. So, there’s no harm in using Ubersuggest parallelly with the paid version of either SEMrush or Ahref.
Unlike free alternatives, Ubersuggest does not limit its functionality and does not prompt for upgrades to access the full version. You have unlimited access to almost all the functions at no cost all along.
Ahrefs vs SEMrush
“Ahrefs vs SEMrush: Which is better?” is the age-old SEO question. While both Ahrefs and SEMrush are aggressive, SEMrush has a superior balance between insights, information, and tools that go past just data to really assist you with improving your digital marketing efforts.
Unique features of Ahref
Ahrefs is a subscription-based platform for the content, backlink, and general analysis of SEO. It tracks and gives information about content, organic search results, backlinks, and so on. Ahrefs was once popular as a backlink analysis tool. Be that as it may, for the last several years, they’ve included a lot of new features that make it an immediate competitor of SEMrush. That is the reason it’s even conceivable to do a SEMrush versus Ahrefs comparison. A couple of years ago, Ahrefs was 100% centered around links. Today, Ahrefs has a huge amount of insights including:
- Keyword research features
- Keyword competitor analysis
- Technical SEO tools (like a site audit feature)
- Rank tracking
Unique features of SEMrush
Ahrefs Vs SEMrush – Comparison based on four key pillars
In this Ahrefs vs SEMrush comparison, we are going to view the capabilities of Ahrefs and SEMrush around the following four pillars of SEO:
- Technical Research
- Keyword Research
- Competitor Research
- Link Research
1. Technical Research: Ahrefs vs SEMrush
Each tool offers something more than what’s expected, and each flags up various issues that the other doesn’t show effectively. We prefer SEMrush’s data and how they structure things through the audit. For an amateur, however, this may be overwhelming at times.
Ahrefs presents insights faster, but a section of their tools (such as the site structure) isn’t as thorough as you would regularly need.
In general, with regard to technical SEO features, SEMrush proves to be the better SEO tool.
Its site audit feature is really powerful, and it clearly outlines the action items that need to be taken up on priority.
So, if you are a freelancer, need a superior user interface, and an excessive amount of data overwhelms you, then Ahrefs is a better decision for you. However, if you need a robust audit feature and a lot of data to play with, you ought to select SEMrush.
2. Keyword Research
SEMrush is the unanimous winner when it comes to keyword searches. They’ve invested a ton of time and effort into their tools.
Although the UI and UX are not as friendly as those of Ahrefs and the keyword research workflow is somewhat disjointed, you can still find more keywords around a topic very effectively, organize them, and work on them.
Ahrefs looks better and has a superior UX, yet we think they’re way behind.
3. Competitor Research
You would agree that it is critical to have a good amount of data about your competition so that you can recognize their SEO techniques and utilize that to re-strategize your own.
SEMrush is the leader when it comes to competitor research because they have placed thought and effort into explicit tools required for competitor research that dive sufficiently deeper. While their UI isn’t as fresh as Ahref, the capacity to get the information and then put it into action with keyword tracking takes them to the next level and makes them the obvious choice for competitor research.
4. Link Research
It’s essential to keep in mind that Ahrefs started as a link index. SEMrush, on the other hand, started as a keyword tool. Ahrefs has (starting July 2019) 162.7M domains, 285.2B pages, and 2.2 trillion backlinks in their list. SEMrush has 6.1B URLs crawled every day, 16.8T backlinks, and 997M referring domains.
All things considered, the size of the backlinks is just one factor to consider.
For instance, the User Interface matters equally. If you can get the information you need without expecting to click multiple times, that’s a big relief for many.
Ahrefs is a lot simpler to use for link analysis.
With regards to backlink features, SEMrush and Ahrefs are equal. SEMrush’s recently extended index is extraordinary. Moreover, their UI has made considerable progress as well. Yet, when you need to investigate a site’s link profile, you end up opening up another tab and starting up Ahrefs primarily because of its great UI.
Ahref’s link building functionality has very frequently outvoted that of SEMrush.
Based on the analysis of the four functionalities – technical research, keyword research, and competitor research, and link analysis – SEMrush can be the SEO tool to look at for complete overview. For link research, however, it is better to go with Ahref.
Detailed Comparison Between SEMrush vs Ahrefs vs Ubersuggest
Detailed features Comparison – Ahrefs vs SEMrush
So far, we’ve established a rough comparison based on four key features –technical research, keyword research, competitor research, and link research. In this section, we will be exploring the features of both tools in depth.
| Features |
Ahrefs |
SEMrush |
| @Mentions |
Yes |
Yes |
| Api |
Yes |
Yes |
| Activity Tracking |
No |
Yes |
| Advertising Management |
No |
Yes |
| Alerts/Escalations |
Yes |
No |
| Application Integration |
No |
Yes |
| Auditing |
No |
Yes |
| Automated Scheduling |
No |
Yes |
| Benchmarking |
No |
Yes |
| Built-In Database |
No |
Yes |
| Business Intelligence |
No |
Yes |
| Calender Management |
No |
Yes |
| Campaign Analysis |
No |
Yes |
| Campaign Management |
No |
Yes |
| Campaign Planing |
No |
Yes |
| Campaign Scheduling |
No |
Yes |
| Charting |
No |
Yes |
| Click Tracking |
Yes |
No |
| Collaboration Tools |
No |
Yes |
| Commenting |
No |
Yes |
| Content Management |
No |
Yes |
| Customizable Branding |
No |
Yes |
| Customizable Reporting |
No |
Yes |
| Customizable Templates |
No |
Yes |
| Data Filtering |
Yes |
No |
| Data Import |
No |
Yes |
| Data Import/Export |
Yes |
Yes |
| Data Vizualization |
Yes |
Yes |
| Data Detection |
No |
Yes |
| Email Alerts |
No |
Yes |
| Email Integretion |
No |
Yes |
| Email Notification |
Yes |
Yes |
| Engagement Analytics |
No |
Yes |
| Filtered View |
Yes |
No |
| Geolocation |
No |
Yes |
| Geotargeting |
No |
Yes |
| Historical Analysis |
No |
Yes |
| Ideation |
No |
Yes |
| Keyword Tracking |
Yes |
Yes |
| Knowledge Base Management |
No |
Yes |
| Lead Generation |
No |
Yes |
| Mind Maps |
No |
Yes |
| Monitoring |
No |
Yes |
| Multi-Country |
No |
Yes |
| Multi-Language |
No |
Yes |
| Multi Location |
No |
Yes |
| Multiple Projects |
No |
Yes |
| Performance Report |
No |
Yes |
| Planning Tools |
No |
Yes |
| Prioritizing |
No |
Yes |
| Progress Tracking |
No |
Yes |
| Rss Feeds |
No |
Yes |
| Real Time Analytics |
Yes |
Yes |
| Real Time Notifications |
Yes |
No |
| Referral Source Tracking |
Yes |
Yes |
| Reporting & Statistics |
No |
Yes |
| Seo Management |
No |
Yes |
| Scheduled Reporting |
No |
Yes |
| Social Media Integration |
No |
Yes |
| Social Media Metrics |
No |
Yes |
| Social Performance Management |
No |
Yes |
| Tagging |
No |
Yes |
| Task Management |
No |
Yes |
| Team Calendars |
No |
Yes |
| Template Management |
No |
Yes |
| Third Party Integeration |
No |
Yes |
| Trend Analysis |
No |
Yes |
| Web Analytics |
Yes |
Yes |
| Web Traffic Reporting |
Yes |
Yes |
We gathered the above-mentioned data from G2.com. Based on the above data, we feel that some SEMrush features such as social performance management, engagement analytics, email alerts, activity tracking, etc. should be must-have features for all SEO tools. If you need to access all these features in your SEO tool, then it would be a good idea to go for SEMrush. However, if real-time notifications, click tracking, escalations are the must-have features for you, then you should consider Ahrefs.
Pricing Comparison
Source: G2.com
As you can see from the above comparison,
- Ahrefs doesn’t offer a free trial
- Both players offer very competitive pricing
- While Ahrefs can be a good solution for Freelancers, SEMrush doesn’t highlight its offerings for freelancers
- SEMrush has custom plans for large enterprise, whereas Ahrefs doesn’t seem to have similar offerings for enterprise clients
Source: G2.com
So, if you are a freelancer, then Ahrefs might be a better solution for you. And, if you represent a large enterprise, then SEMrush should be a better option amidst the two.
Positioning
| Ahrefs |
SEMRush |
| Ahrefs tracks backlinks, keywords, brand mentions and competitors’ traffic to provide comprehensive intelligence data. |
SEMrush is a marketing toolkit designed for digital marketing professionals, with tools for optimizing strategies. |
Platform Supported
Both SEMRush and Ahrefs are completely web-based. They do not offer iPhone, android or windows phone app.
Customer Support
It’s very easy to ask questions on Ahrefs through a chat box at the bottom right-hand corner. In SEMRush, you need to scroll down all the way to the Contact Us tab. Then SEMRush requires you to fill in a web form to be able to submit a question. Both Ahrefs and SEMRush offers phone as well as online support. The good point about SEMRush, though, is that they have a knowledge base as well as video tutorials that can be very helpful.
Source: G2.com
Summing Up the Ahrefs Vs SEMRush comparison
To sum up the comparison between Ahrefs and SEMRush, here are our key pointers:
As far as the ease of use, ease of setup, ease of admin and support quality goes, Ahrefs is ahead of SEMRush
SEMRush is a clear winner as far as SEO auditing, keyword search, and rank tracking go.
For measuring the off-page SEO performance indicators such as link building and backlink monitoring, Ahrefs is a winner. Although SEMRush data tells us that SEMRush is now as good as Ahrefs for Off-page SEO as well, we prefer to go with the data that has been gathered as a result of user responses and is available in the public domain.
In the end, here is a quick feature comparison – Ahrefs Vs SEMRush
Source: Online Marketing tools
Can UberSuggest be compared with Ahrefs and SEMRush?
As we mentioned at the beginning of this article, Ubersuggest is a free keyword idea generation tool. It has been acquired by Neil Patel, the leading SEO guru, who improved it with new features. Ubersuggest is a great tool – simple and reliable.
However, it will certainly not be the best SEO tool when compared with Ahrefs and SEMrush in terms of features and support. Having said that, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to keep working on this tool alongside Ahrefs or SEMrush. Here is a quick feature comparison of Ubersuggest with Ahrefs and SEMrush.
Ubersuggest Vs SEMRush
Look at the below image for the detailed comparison of features and functionality of Ubersuggest and SEMRush
Source: Online Marketing tools
Ubersuggest Vs Ahrefs
Look at the below image for the detailed comparison of features and functionality of Ubersuggest and Ahrefs.
Source: Online Marketing tools
Summing up SEMRush (Paid) Vs Ahrefs (Paid) Vs Ubersuggest (free)
As we come to the end of this comparison of SEMrush Vs Ahrefs Vs Ubersuggest, let’s see what unique features make each tool different from the other two.
1. Ubersuggest is unique in terms of pricing. The core Ubersuggest platform is free.
| SEMRush |
Free trial |
| Ahrefs |
No Free trial |
| Ubersuggest |
Free |
2. SEMRush offers On-page SEO checker and Social Media poster while the other tools do not offer these functionalities
|
On Page SEO Checker |
Social Media Poster |
| Ubersuggest |
No |
No |
| Ahrefs |
No |
No |
| SEMRush |
Yes |
Yes |
3. Ahrefs offers functionalities such as Content Gap Analysis, Content Discovery and broken links checker whereas the other tools do not.
|
Content Gap Analysis |
Content Discovery |
Broken Links Checker |
| SEMRush |
No |
No |
No |
| UberSuggest |
No |
No |
No |
| Ahrefs |
Yes |
Yes |
Yes |
Conclusion
While making a comparison of Ahrefs vs SEMrush vs Ubersuggest, we conclude that Ahrefs and SEMrush are great tools, and both of them offer tons of features. Depending upon the usage, any of these SEO tools can be better for users. While Ahrefs has a better user interface (UI), SEMrush is more robust.
Ahrefs can be used by freelancers as well as agencies. However, SEMrush is a better solution for large enterprises. SEMrush is a better tool for on-page SEO, whereas Ahrefs is a better tool for Off-page SEO such as Backlink analysis and link building.
Ubersuggest, on the other hand, is at the beginning of its evolution. It is in the safe hands of know digital marketer Neil Patel. However, it offers fewer features as compared to Ahrefs or SEMrush. The good news is that the core product of Ubersuggest is 100% free. So, it doesn’t harm to use Ubersuggest parallelly along with Ahrefs or SEMrush and let the tool evolve. And, although Ubersuggest may not be the best SEO tool, it certainly has the potential to reach great heights, and marketers need to keep a close eye on the tool.