Ahrefs and SE Ranking are highly respected tools among SEO professionals. Deciding which one deserves your investment can be challenging since both have excellent features. I'll help you figure out which works better for your business by examining keyword research capabilities, backlink analysis functions, technical SEO audit tools, and pricing structures.
Based in Singapore, Dmitry Gerasimenko founded Ahrefs in 2011 as a backlink analysis tool. It quickly earned a reputation for accurate backlink data. The company expanded its features over time, becoming a complete SEO platform that includes keyword research, site audits, rank tracking, and many other essential SEO tools.
SE Ranking launched in 2013 as a cloud-based SEO platform for entrepreneurs, agencies, and marketing experts. With headquarters in London and offices across the USA, Ukraine, and Belarus, SE Ranking offers keyword research, technical SEO audits, backlink checking, competitor analysis, and more. The platform serves over 400,000 users worldwide, from small businesses to large corporations.
Let's start by comparing their keyword research features. Every business generally knows what keywords they want to rank for, but finding every possible search query requires dedicated research. Both platforms offer strong keyword research capabilities but with different approaches and strengths.
Ahrefs transformed its Keywords Explorer tool in 2018 with version 2.0, significantly expanding its keyword database. The tool produces solid keyword ideas with accurate data on search volume, difficulty levels, clicks, and other important metrics. When you enter seed keywords, you'll see an overview report with crucial data for making informed decisions.
Two unique aspects of Ahrefs keyword reports include Return Rate, showing how often users search for a keyword within 30 days, and monthly clicks data. This second metric matters because a high search volume doesn't always mean high traffic. For example, "New York population" gets 51,000 monthly searches but only 4,000 clicks because Google answers this directly in featured snippets.
The overview also displays keyword ideas related to your seed terms. You can expand these lists, apply filters, and see exactly who ranks on page one for your target terms. However, Ahrefs falls short on PPC data, offering minimal paid advertising insights beyond basic information in the Ads history report.
SE Ranking boasts a huge keyword database containing over 2 billion unique search queries from Google, Bing, Yandex, and Yahoo. The database is updated monthly. The company's keyword research tool generates comprehensive reports showing search volume, difficulty, and CPC for your seed keywords, then groups ideas into similar keywords, related keywords, and low search volume options.
You can explore any keyword term to generate detailed reports for specific variations. The system helps narrow broad terms to find keywords with optimal search volume and difficulty balance. For any keyword, you can also view top organic search results directly within the interface.
SE Ranking excels at PPC insights. The reports show the top five websites bidding on your target keywords through Google Ads, with options to expand the list and view their current and past advertisements. This information helps determine optimal campaign budgets and highlights effective ad copy styles.
Comparing these keyword research features, both tools perform admirably, but SE Ranking edges ahead because of its superior PPC analysis capabilities. Ahrefs has always struggled with paid advertising data, making SE Ranking the better choice for businesses running Google and Bing ad campaigns.
Moving to backlink analysis, which is a critical SEO factor since Google treats backlinks as trust signals, Ahrefs began as a backlink checker and has maintained its reputation as the most reliable tool for this purpose. But how does SE Ranking compare against this industry leader?
Ahrefs Site Explorer provides comprehensive insights into any website's backlink profile. You can analyze your site or spy on competitors to understand their link-building strategies. The overview report shows website performance in organic and paid search plus high-level SEO and backlink data, with particular emphasis on referring domains.
The interactive referring domains graph displays link acquisition rates over time, helping evaluate consistency in gaining links. You can dig deeper by clicking the referring domains number to see all unique websites linking to your target site. Adding a "dofollow" filter and sorting by domain rating reveals the most authoritative sites linking to your competitor.
SE Ranking's Backlink Checker shows similar metrics, including trust score, anchors, dofollow/nofollow ratios, referring domains, and backlinks. You'll find interactive graphs for tracking domains, backlinks, and new or lost linking sites. The referring domains report lists all unique domains linking to your target website.
You can add filters and sort by domain trust to find high-authority sites, but SE Ranking lacks a dedicated filter for viewing only dofollow backlinks. The platform also has a smaller link index than Ahrefs. For example, Buffer.com showed 77,600 referring domains in Ahrefs but only 38,100 in SE Ranking.
For backlink analysis, Ahrefs clearly outperforms SE Ranking with its larger link index and more efficient user interface, which requires fewer clicks to access important data.
Technical SEO audit capabilities differ significantly between these platforms. Though less exciting than keyword research or link building, technical SEO remains essential because issues with site structure, XML sitemaps, SSL certificates, or robots.txt files can prevent high rankings.
Ahrefs' site audit tool has limitations. It takes hours to crawl even smaller websites and produces less comprehensive reports than expected. Testing revealed that Ahrefs missed numerous critical SEO errors on client sites, showing high health scores for websites that other tools correctly identified as having serious problems.
The audit overview displays the site health score plus issue distribution and lists the top problems needing attention. Despite improvements, Ahrefs's audit tool works best for identifying basic issues rather than conducting thorough technical assessments.
SE Ranking automatically audits sites when you add new projects, immediately calculating an SEO health score. The report identifies important and semi-important fixes needed to improve site health. The full audit breaks down into five sections: health check, page analysis, meta-analysis, content analysis, and link analysis.
Each section reveals errors affecting your site's SEO health, with links to affected pages. After fixing important errors, you can run fresh audits to verify that your fixes worked. SE Ranking conducts more thorough audits, better prioritizes issues, and provides a more accurate picture of technical SEO health.
Pricing represents another significant difference between these platforms. Ahrefs offers four monthly plans: Lite ($129), Standard ($249), Advanced ($449), and Enterprise ($14,990 yearly). They don't provide free trials but offer Ahrefs Webmaster Tools with limited free access to Site Audit and Site Explorer. Small businesses might find the Lite plan sufficient, but agencies typically need the Advanced plan.
SE Ranking presents three pricing tiers: Optimum ($39), Plus ($89), and Enterprise ($189). Prices adjust based on keyword tracking needs—tracking 500 keywords under Optimum costs $54 monthly instead of $39. This flexible structure breaks from industry standards, where basic plans typically cost $99 monthly. Small businesses can start with Optimum, and agencies with Plus.
SE Ranking delivers superior value, offering complete SEO and PPC capabilities for less than half the price of Ahrefs' basic plan.
Both tools have excellent reputations, but SE Ranking wins overall by providing better PPC insights during keyword research and superior technical SEO auditing at a much lower price point. For current Ahrefs users frustrated by recent usage-based pricing changes, SE Ranking represents an excellent alternative.
Your final decision depends on priorities. If link building matters most and budget isn't a concern, Ahrefs remains unmatched for data quality and accuracy. If keyword research (both SEO and PPC) and site audits matter more than backlink analysis, or if budget considerations play a major role, SE Ranking offers the better solution.
Based in Singapore, Dmitry Gerasimenko founded Ahrefs in 2011 as a backlink analysis tool. It quickly earned a reputation for accurate backlink data. The company expanded its features over time, becoming a complete SEO platform that includes keyword research, site audits, rank tracking, and many other essential SEO tools.
SE Ranking launched in 2013 as a cloud-based SEO platform for entrepreneurs, agencies, and marketing experts. With headquarters in London and offices across the USA, Ukraine, and Belarus, SE Ranking offers keyword research, technical SEO audits, backlink checking, competitor analysis, and more. The platform serves over 400,000 users worldwide, from small businesses to large corporations.
Let's start by comparing their keyword research features. Every business generally knows what keywords they want to rank for, but finding every possible search query requires dedicated research. Both platforms offer strong keyword research capabilities but with different approaches and strengths.
Ahrefs transformed its Keywords Explorer tool in 2018 with version 2.0, significantly expanding its keyword database. The tool produces solid keyword ideas with accurate data on search volume, difficulty levels, clicks, and other important metrics. When you enter seed keywords, you'll see an overview report with crucial data for making informed decisions.
Two unique aspects of Ahrefs keyword reports include Return Rate, showing how often users search for a keyword within 30 days, and monthly clicks data. This second metric matters because a high search volume doesn't always mean high traffic. For example, "New York population" gets 51,000 monthly searches but only 4,000 clicks because Google answers this directly in featured snippets.
The overview also displays keyword ideas related to your seed terms. You can expand these lists, apply filters, and see exactly who ranks on page one for your target terms. However, Ahrefs falls short on PPC data, offering minimal paid advertising insights beyond basic information in the Ads history report.
SE Ranking boasts a huge keyword database containing over 2 billion unique search queries from Google, Bing, Yandex, and Yahoo. The database is updated monthly. The company's keyword research tool generates comprehensive reports showing search volume, difficulty, and CPC for your seed keywords, then groups ideas into similar keywords, related keywords, and low search volume options.
You can explore any keyword term to generate detailed reports for specific variations. The system helps narrow broad terms to find keywords with optimal search volume and difficulty balance. For any keyword, you can also view top organic search results directly within the interface.
SE Ranking excels at PPC insights. The reports show the top five websites bidding on your target keywords through Google Ads, with options to expand the list and view their current and past advertisements. This information helps determine optimal campaign budgets and highlights effective ad copy styles.
Comparing these keyword research features, both tools perform admirably, but SE Ranking edges ahead because of its superior PPC analysis capabilities. Ahrefs has always struggled with paid advertising data, making SE Ranking the better choice for businesses running Google and Bing ad campaigns.
Moving to backlink analysis, which is a critical SEO factor since Google treats backlinks as trust signals, Ahrefs began as a backlink checker and has maintained its reputation as the most reliable tool for this purpose. But how does SE Ranking compare against this industry leader?
Ahrefs Site Explorer provides comprehensive insights into any website's backlink profile. You can analyze your site or spy on competitors to understand their link-building strategies. The overview report shows website performance in organic and paid search plus high-level SEO and backlink data, with particular emphasis on referring domains.
The interactive referring domains graph displays link acquisition rates over time, helping evaluate consistency in gaining links. You can dig deeper by clicking the referring domains number to see all unique websites linking to your target site. Adding a "dofollow" filter and sorting by domain rating reveals the most authoritative sites linking to your competitor.
SE Ranking's Backlink Checker shows similar metrics, including trust score, anchors, dofollow/nofollow ratios, referring domains, and backlinks. You'll find interactive graphs for tracking domains, backlinks, and new or lost linking sites. The referring domains report lists all unique domains linking to your target website.
You can add filters and sort by domain trust to find high-authority sites, but SE Ranking lacks a dedicated filter for viewing only dofollow backlinks. The platform also has a smaller link index than Ahrefs. For example, Buffer.com showed 77,600 referring domains in Ahrefs but only 38,100 in SE Ranking.
For backlink analysis, Ahrefs clearly outperforms SE Ranking with its larger link index and more efficient user interface, which requires fewer clicks to access important data.
Technical SEO audit capabilities differ significantly between these platforms. Though less exciting than keyword research or link building, technical SEO remains essential because issues with site structure, XML sitemaps, SSL certificates, or robots.txt files can prevent high rankings.
Ahrefs' site audit tool has limitations. It takes hours to crawl even smaller websites and produces less comprehensive reports than expected. Testing revealed that Ahrefs missed numerous critical SEO errors on client sites, showing high health scores for websites that other tools correctly identified as having serious problems.
The audit overview displays the site health score plus issue distribution and lists the top problems needing attention. Despite improvements, Ahrefs's audit tool works best for identifying basic issues rather than conducting thorough technical assessments.
SE Ranking automatically audits sites when you add new projects, immediately calculating an SEO health score. The report identifies important and semi-important fixes needed to improve site health. The full audit breaks down into five sections: health check, page analysis, meta-analysis, content analysis, and link analysis.
Each section reveals errors affecting your site's SEO health, with links to affected pages. After fixing important errors, you can run fresh audits to verify that your fixes worked. SE Ranking conducts more thorough audits, better prioritizes issues, and provides a more accurate picture of technical SEO health.
Pricing represents another significant difference between these platforms. Ahrefs offers four monthly plans: Lite ($129), Standard ($249), Advanced ($449), and Enterprise ($14,990 yearly). They don't provide free trials but offer Ahrefs Webmaster Tools with limited free access to Site Audit and Site Explorer. Small businesses might find the Lite plan sufficient, but agencies typically need the Advanced plan.
SE Ranking presents three pricing tiers: Optimum ($39), Plus ($89), and Enterprise ($189). Prices adjust based on keyword tracking needs—tracking 500 keywords under Optimum costs $54 monthly instead of $39. This flexible structure breaks from industry standards, where basic plans typically cost $99 monthly. Small businesses can start with Optimum, and agencies with Plus.
SE Ranking delivers superior value, offering complete SEO and PPC capabilities for less than half the price of Ahrefs' basic plan.
Both tools have excellent reputations, but SE Ranking wins overall by providing better PPC insights during keyword research and superior technical SEO auditing at a much lower price point. For current Ahrefs users frustrated by recent usage-based pricing changes, SE Ranking represents an excellent alternative.
Your final decision depends on priorities. If link building matters most and budget isn't a concern, Ahrefs remains unmatched for data quality and accuracy. If keyword research (both SEO and PPC) and site audits matter more than backlink analysis, or if budget considerations play a major role, SE Ranking offers the better solution.
