What users are saying about

Ahrefs vs Screaming Frog

Ahrefs

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Top Rated
95 Ratings

Screaming Frog

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Top Rated
76 Ratings

Ahrefs

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Top Rated
95 Ratings
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Score 9 out of 101

Based on 95 reviews and ratings

Screaming Frog

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Top Rated
76 Ratings
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Score 9.3 out of 101

Based on 76 reviews and ratings

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Likelihood to Recommend

Ahrefs

Ahrefs has great prices for the data they provide. As a freelancer, I know there are cheaper options, but they do not provide the backlink data that Ahrefs provides. As an in-house SEO, I believe that Ahrefs is a must for research. If I had one SEO tool, it would be Ahrefs because it has most SEO tools all in its suite.

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Mitch Lee
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Screaming Frog

Screaming Frog SEO Spider is perfect for quick SEO audits to show prospective clients where their websites are falling short. It covers all the details you'd want an SEO audit tool to cover. It is probably a little confusing at first to beginner SEO's as it is fairly technical and as stated before, the GUI is not all that user friendly.

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Scott Richardson
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Feature Rating Comparison

SEO

Ahrefs
8.0
Screaming Frog
7.0
Keyword analysis
Ahrefs
9.2
Screaming Frog
6.3
Backlink management
Ahrefs
9.3
Screaming Frog
6.9
SERP ranking tracking
Ahrefs
8.7
Screaming Frog
7.0
Page grader
Ahrefs
8.0
Screaming Frog
6.6
Competitive analysis
Ahrefs
9.1
Screaming Frog
7.4
Site audit / diagnostics
Ahrefs
7.6
Screaming Frog
9.5
Site recommendations
Ahrefs
6.9
Screaming Frog
7.3
Task management
Ahrefs
5.0
Screaming Frog
5.0

SEO Channels

Ahrefs
7.6
Screaming Frog
8.7
Local SEO
Ahrefs
8.0
Screaming Frog
9.0
Social SEO
Ahrefs
6.1
Screaming Frog
8.0
Mobile SEO
Ahrefs
7.3
Screaming Frog
8.8
Global SEO
Ahrefs
8.9
Screaming Frog
9.2

SEO Platform & Account Management

Ahrefs
8.1
Screaming Frog
8.5
Multi-domain support
Ahrefs
8.8
Screaming Frog
8.9
Integration with web analytics tools
Ahrefs
7.4
Screaming Frog
8.0

Pros

  • The index of links updates very often
  • The export features allow easy data cross analysis with other data sources
  • The price is well worth the return of service and usefulness

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Verified User
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  • Analyzes all metadata
  • Character counts of all metadata
  • identifies missing alt text on all images
  • identifies all H1 and H2 headlines
  • identifies broken links and loops

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Scott Richardson
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Cons

  • URL rating distribution is a bit confusing and not as useful as Domain rating distribution would be. All sites I've reviewed with this tend to have a very poor distribution here.
  • New and lost referring domains links is a bit confusing as well. I've never seen any tool do this chart in a way that makes sense. Dramatic rises and loses tend to send people down the wrong path of investigation. A weighted version (based on DR) would likely be more useful.

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Katie Goh
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  • The GUI is a little old school
  • No cloud version is available...desktop version only (Chromebooks are SOL)
  • Pricing isn't terrible...but there is no monthly option. £149.00 or roughly $190USD/yr.

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Scott Richardson
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Likelihood to Renew

Ahrefs8.0
Based on 4 answers
We use it daily, no need to change a good thing

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Clinton Dugan
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Screaming Frog10.0
Based on 3 answers
The tool has become integrated into our teams daily workings and I have yet to find a tool other than scremaing frog to replicate all of our use cases for it. It's a great tool and we're sticking with it

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Anthony Daronzio
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Usability

Ahrefs7.0
Based on 1 answer
Ahrefs is very easy to use - you can jump right in and understand most of the assets. Overall, the dashboard snapshots give a very good picture of inbound link activity. For deeper analysis of historical trends, the system can become cumbersome, making it hard to do full work without exporting and reformatting the data.

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Verified User
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Screaming Frog7.0
Based on 2 answers
Easy for me to use because I have using the product for a long time and understand the ins and outs of it. If I was a newbie, I would be completely lost. It does take some prior knowledge to operate this software and understanding of what a crawl means

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Anthony Daronzio
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Support

No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Screaming Frog10.0
Based on 1 answer
I have had very little issues with the software, most of which can be answered with the very extensive online documentation. However the few times I have had to ask for support, they have been nothing but helpful.

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Anthony Daronzio
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Implementation

No score
No answers yet
No answers on this topic
Screaming Frog7.0
Based on 1 answer
If the software was a little easier to use for beginners, there really wouldn't be an issue

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Anthony Daronzio
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Alternatives Considered

It's very clear that Ahrefs has a larger database than their competitors. I never run into issues where this tool isn't able to evaluate keywords - even if they are very long tail niche keywords. The link section of the tool is also very useful. Ahrefs is able to clean up the links to root domains better than competitors, making link tracking much easier than it has been in the past.

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Katie Goh
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ScreamingFrog is the foundation of any good SEO strategy because it identifies key elements that always fall under white-hat SEO tactics. It's so inexpensive for 2 licenses and the value it provides is being able to build properties that can grow organic web presence over time.

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Amanda Tessier
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Return on Investment

  • Ahrefs has allowed me to create content sections which have become very valuable to our site
  • Ahrefs allows me to review other websites to discover strategies that have worked for competitors
  • We have been able to track our link building progress on influencer campaigns.

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Katie Goh
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  • We use the free version of Screaming Frog SEO Spider because our company has not seen the benefits of the upgraded package that other programs aren't already offering.

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Verified User
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Pricing Details

Ahrefs

General
Free Trial
—
Free/Freemium Version
—
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—
Entry-level set up fee?
—
Additional Pricing Details
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Screaming Frog

General
Free Trial
—
Free/Freemium Version
—
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—
Entry-level set up fee?
—
Additional Pricing Details
—