Ahrefs vs Screaming Frog SEO Spider
Ahrefs
ahrefs.com
Screaming Frog SEO Spider
screamingfrog.co.ukSide by side
| Figure | Ahrefs | Screaming Frog SEO Spider |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $29/mo | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | — | Yes |
| macOS | — | Yes |
| Linux | — | Yes |
| API | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 10 | 9 |
| Spec score · SEO tools | 9.2 (#7) | 9.5 (#1) |
| Spec score · SEO Analytics Software | 9.1 (#1) | 8.9 (#4) |
| Spec score · Search Engine Optimization Software | 9.1 (#1) | 8.9 (#4) |
| Spec score · Website Optimization Tools | 9.1 (#3) | 8.9 (#6) |
| API access | API access is included in paid plans, with uncapped access for Enterprise. | Yes |
| Backlink analysis | Yes | Yes |
| Founded | 2010 | 2010 |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Headquarters | Singapore | Henley-on-Thames, Oxfordshire, UK |
| Integrations | Ahrefs offers native Ahrefs integration, Looker Studio integration, and connections to AI chatbots. | It connects to Google Analytics, Search Console, and PageSpeed Insights APIs, and lists link metrics integrations for Majestic, Ahrefs, and Moz APIs. |
| Site audit | Yes | Yes |
Plans
Ahrefs
- Ahrefs FreeFree
- Starter$29 a month
- Lite$129 a month
- Standard$249 a month
- Advanced$449 a month
- Enterprise$1,499 a month
- Basic prompt package$50 a month
- Growth prompt package$100 a month
- Brand Radar$199 a month
- Scale prompt package$250 a month
Screaming Frog SEO Spider
- FreeFree
- Paid licencePrice not published
- Free VersionFree
- Free VersionFree
- Paid licence (20+)$235 a year
- Paid licence (10–19)$249 a year
- Paid licence (5–9)$265 a year
- Paid licence (1–4)$279 a year
- Paid Version$279 a year
In their own words
Ahrefs
Ahrefs is a web and API platform for SEO research, including keyword research, rank tracking, site audits, backlink analysis and competitor research. It also provides content tools, AI assistants and MCP access. Content Explorer can find web mentions and link prospects, while AI Content Helper supports content improvement. The free plan provides site data and fixes with limited access to Site Explorer and Site Audit. Paid plans start with Starter at $29 a month. Lite costs $129 a month and includes five projects, 750 tracked keywords, 100,000 monthly crawl credits and one user; its Site Audit allowance has a 25,000-page project maximum. Annual payment saves up to 17%. Enterprise costs $1,499 a month and requires an annual commitment; it includes SSO, two-factor authentication, ISO27001 certification, access management, audit logs and unlimited additional users. Ahrefs says its web index contains 170 trillion pages, tracks 41.9 billion keywords and filters 28.7 billion keywords; AhrefsBot crawls 8 billion pages daily. Founded in 2010, the company is headquartered in Singapore. Multilingual support is available five days a week.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider
Screaming Frog SEO Spider crawls websites to audit more than 300 SEO issues and support improvements to search performance and user experience. It finds broken links and server errors, checks redirects, and flags page titles and meta descriptions that are missing, duplicated, or too long. For JavaScript-heavy sites, it can render pages with its integrated Chromium WRS, including sites using Angular, React, and Vue.js. Data extraction supports CSS Path, XPath, regular expressions, and custom JavaScript. The crawler connects to Google Analytics, Search Console, and PageSpeed Insights APIs, with link-metrics integrations for Majestic, Ahrefs, and Moz. Crawls can be scheduled, automated from the command line, exported to destinations such as Google Sheets, and compared across runs or between staging and production. The free version costs nothing and allows 500 URLs per crawl; saving crawls, configuration, and advanced features are restricted. The paid version costs $279 a year per licence, with unlimited crawl size subject to allocated memory and storage. It runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows.