Ahrefs vs. SpyFu

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Ahrefs
Score 9.1 out of 10
N/A
Ahrefs is an SEO tool providers. Ahrefs Site Explorer provides a suite of tools including a component for backlink & on-page SEO analysis, online brand mentions tracking, and domain comparison tool for competitor analysis, etc. They refer to themselves as “the largest index of live backlinks.”
$99
per month
SpyFu
Score 6.9 out of 10
N/A
SpyFu is the eponymous SEO and PPC research platform from the company in Scottsdale, Arizona focused on "spying" on competitors, or basically using their behaviors to refine your own through keyword and content analysis, and backlink poaching. This positional search engine optimization and paid listings management platform touts the ability to lower costs and raise rankings via a Kombat-oriented approach... basically a cute way of saying "it makes comparisons" of how well your site does in niche…
$39
per month
Pricing
AhrefsSpyFu
Editions & Modules
Lite
$99.00
per month
Standard
$179.00
per month
Advanced
$399.00
per month
Agency
$999.00
per month
Basic
$39
per month
Professional
$79
per month
Team
$299
per month
Offerings
Pricing Offerings
AhrefsSpyFu
Free Trial
NoNo
Free/Freemium Version
YesNo
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
NoNo
Entry-level Setup FeeNo setup feeNo setup fee
Additional Details
More Pricing Information
Community Pulse
AhrefsSpyFu
Considered Both Products
Ahrefs
Chose Ahrefs
Ahrefs and SpyFu compliment each other. Ahrefs is better for backlinks and overall performance tracking. SpyFu is the leader for keyword analysis, especially with their combat tool. Conductor strives to replace or supplement Webmaster Tools and Google Analytics and build custom …
Chose Ahrefs
Ahrefs is easier to use, their features deliver understandable and logical recommendations, and in my opinion and most importantly — they list parent topics, which is huge when designing/redesigning a website.
Chose Ahrefs
Ahrefs is one of the best platforms available in the market dealing in developing online SEO tools and free educational material for marketing professionals. It has all the best features related to SEO and gives all the performance and analytics based on digital presence.
Chose Ahrefs
SEMRush is the clear competitor and beats Ahrefs for keyword position tracking and keyword competitive analysis. However, Ahrefs is a clear winner in the quality and timeliness of their backlink database. Both should be used in conjunction.
Chose Ahrefs
I like these other softwares too. If you work in an agency you will likely have uses for many different platforms. I do like the way that ahrefs indexes and tracks links more than anything else I have used though. I think it is very effective with competitive research as well.
SpyFu
Chose SpyFu
Spyfu fails to hit the mark at least when it comes to SEO since both Ahrefs and Semrush has a bigger directory and fetches data from more countries than Spyfu does, however Spyfu offers a great deal when it comes to cost effective solution to almost every digital marketing …
Chose SpyFu
Compared to Semrush or Ahrefs, neither of the competitors stacks up against SpyFu in terms of competitor insight of paid ad performance. It can even identify specific ad copy changes, which can be crucial for high-demand periods like Black Friday. In my opinion, SpyFu is an …
Chose SpyFu
SpyFu is more cost-effective than both (Ahrefs and Semrush), but we have to compromise on the data's accuracy. However, the data reporting and user interface of SpyFu make it easy to decipher. For Paid Ads keyword lookup, we prefer SpyFu to any other tool maybe, because it's …
Chose SpyFu
I use Ahrefs for Site audit, Keyword Research, Backlink analysis, and some parts of competitor analysis. SpyFu I always wanted to keep primary, but it's not doable with the limitation of their database, which forces me to use Ahrefs for that reason.
Chose SpyFu
I've used Semrush as well. Semrush does organic SEO analysis better than SpyFu and backlink research. I find the data more intuitive. I much prefer SpyFu for their advertising/PPC analysis and use SpyFu when researching competitors' advertising campaigns. These are the main two …
Chose SpyFu
SpyFu is a good tool and it certainly provides a good starting point for any basic PPC or SEO campaign. I dont believe it has the comprehensive features that a tool like Ahrefs has, as it doesnt have the granular data these tools possess. However, it is still well worth using …
Chose SpyFu
It's a great little tool that offers pretty much everything you can get from Moz or Semrush at a fraction of the cost. My company uses a few different tools but I always come back to SpyFu because it is so easy to use and their build-in reporting is great.
Chose SpyFu
Personally, the only tool I use as often as SEMRush. If you have the SEMRush paid version, I personally choose to use that over SpyFu. SpyFu is the best free search analytics tool online though. It has the greatest offerings in its free pack and allows you to have the most …
Chose SpyFu
I would say that the above tools each offer their own unique skillset to be able to enhance what we find with SpyFu. For competitive analysis at a low cost point SpyFu really follows through on the promise of delivering actionable competitive insights with additional tools that …
Chose SpyFu
I think that these are both really good products. If you are in an agency there is probably room for both in your budget because you will want to use them with different clients. If you are at a smaller company or a start up I would go with SpyFu. Much more affordable and very …
Features
AhrefsSpyFu
SEO
Comparison of SEO features of Product A and Product B
Ahrefs
7.8
72 Ratings
1% above category average
SpyFu
6.6
52 Ratings
16% below category average
Keyword analysis9.569 Ratings7.052 Ratings
Backlink management9.070 Ratings6.040 Ratings
SERP ranking tracking8.868 Ratings6.144 Ratings
Page grader6.162 Ratings7.829 Ratings
Competitive analysis9.170 Ratings7.151 Ratings
Site audit / diagnostics6.965 Ratings7.232 Ratings
Site recommendations5.961 Ratings6.031 Ratings
Task management7.033 Ratings6.120 Ratings
SEO Channels
Comparison of SEO Channels features of Product A and Product B
Ahrefs
7.0
63 Ratings
8% below category average
SpyFu
5.8
39 Ratings
27% below category average
Local SEO7.151 Ratings5.033 Ratings
Social SEO6.348 Ratings5.028 Ratings
Mobile SEO6.347 Ratings8.029 Ratings
Global SEO8.357 Ratings5.035 Ratings
SEO Platform & Account Management
Comparison of SEO Platform & Account Management features of Product A and Product B
Ahrefs
8.0
60 Ratings
6% below category average
SpyFu
7.3
28 Ratings
15% below category average
Multi-domain support7.757 Ratings6.128 Ratings
Integration with web analytics tools8.429 Ratings8.518 Ratings
Best Alternatives
AhrefsSpyFu
Small Businesses
Nozzle
Nozzle
Score 10.0 out of 10
Nozzle
Nozzle
Score 10.0 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Advanced Web Ranking
Advanced Web Ranking
Score 8.2 out of 10
Advanced Web Ranking
Advanced Web Ranking
Score 8.2 out of 10
Enterprises
Conductor
Conductor
Score 9.2 out of 10
Conductor
Conductor
Score 9.2 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
AhrefsSpyFu
Likelihood to Recommend
9.2
(77 ratings)
7.0
(62 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(5 ratings)
10.0
(10 ratings)
Usability
9.0
(5 ratings)
7.0
(1 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(14 ratings)
7.6
(13 ratings)
User Testimonials
AhrefsSpyFu
Likelihood to Recommend
Ahrefs
Ahrefs is a must have in the SEO toolbox. It is one of the leading tools in the industry for serious SEO research. It can do almost everything you need on the non-technical side of SEO. In my opinion, it is not great if you need a detailed technical tool that identifies errors and helps with fix suggestions. In that instance, I think there are better tools on the market. But - for content and keyword related tasks, I think it's must have.
Read full review
SpyFu
If you have a Google ads PPC campaign and then I would say this is more or less essential if you want to know what your competitors are doing. You can get very useful data out of it even if you subscribe for one month. And the pricing is very reasonable. Even if you don't use Google ads, I would say this is still useful for your SEO/SMO team since it gives you a great idea of what keywords and traffic your competitors are working on.
Read full review
Pros
Ahrefs
  • I have been using this platform in my organization to develop several SEO tools to help to grow our website much.
  • It has all the main features which include competitor research, keyword research, website audit, content research, and rank tracking.
  • I have been using all these functions in the organization for several purposes. It provides complete information and complete performance details of the SEO.
  • It provides us the detailed keyword research with volume, CPC, and other information.
Read full review
SpyFu
  • Keeping a tab on competitors organic and inorganic activities
  • Helps identify where the competitor is getting the backlinks from.
  • Identify competitors top content and the keywords that's bringing them traffic
  • Get proper information of their current and past ADS run on Google.
Read full review
Cons
Ahrefs
  • Can't export graphs: some graphs within the tool would be useful as an export. Unfortunately, exporting them is not an option.
  • No "blanket" reporting options: though Ahrefs is excellent for gathering and exporting intel/data, there are no blanket SEO reports provided. Exporting data is great, but simple report exporting would make it better.
Read full review
SpyFu
  • As with any database, their keyword database has limits, so the data returned is relative to their database, not necessarily the full picture.
  • When SpyFu database or scoring chances, the data provided can spike, thus causing confusion among stakeholders, we're reporting to.
Read full review
Likelihood to Renew
Ahrefs
Their index is too vast to ignore when looking at a complete backlink profile. We find links in Ahrefs that do not appear in any other link detection tool. For this reason, it's a must for our agency to use for the foreseeable future. Plus, it's very affordable considering the data you get
Read full review
SpyFu
Love this tool but would like insights from all 3 major search engines not just Google. I would also like deeper understanding of the placement for local businesses on Google Places/Maps. Insight into mobile search rankings and best landing pages per industry would also help :) Overall, SpyFu is a necessity for serious search marketers.
Read full review
Usability
Ahrefs
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.
Read full review
SpyFu
SpyFu is an easy to use tool, and has a self -explanatroy dashborad to generate the data needed to provide insights into any B2B SEO and PPC campaign. It is not comprehensive, but it certainly provides good enough insight to make it a valuable part of any agency tool stack
Read full review
Support Rating
Ahrefs
Ahrefs has always been responsive when there's been a technical issue with the site. There are usually very little problems, but if there are, they announce it on their social media accounts which keeps its customers informed. Email support is prompt and the customer service people are very helpful, knowledgable and friendly.
Read full review
SpyFu
SpyFu comes with a link to tutorial videos. I recommend you watch them. The software is capable of so much you really need to watch the videos and learn how to get the most out of it. When I have a question 90% of the time it's there. When it isn't, and I reach out to them, support is always quick and concise.
Read full review
Alternatives Considered
Ahrefs
Majestic and Ahrefs are really close in terms of tool. Ahrefs does offer competitive comparison and they do have a more up to date data base. Majestic however has a more comprehensive historical view of sites which is also extremely valuable. Majestic also offers a link velocity chart that is missing on Ahrefs. Ahrefs makes up for this with their links gained/lost calendar which Majestic is missing.
Read full review
SpyFu
I was surprised to find I preferred Semrush when it comes to keyword research. SpyFu is great (and less expensive than Semrush), but I felt the data Semrush provided was vaster than SpyFu. I was able to get more competitors spending insights in Semrush than SpyFu. Overall, I liked the ability to use both in our keyword research for both paid and organic marketing.
Read full review
Return on Investment
Ahrefs
  • Ahrefs Site Explorer has helped with any comprehensive backlink analysis and backlink profile management we've had.
  • Ahrefs Site Explorer has helped tremendously in getting manual penalties lifted for certain sites.
  • Aherfs Site Explorer has been helpful in identifying 404 error pages.
Read full review
SpyFu
  • Helping us track our ranking.
  • It helps solve the problem of ambiguity when it comes to Google Ads. It makes the strategy more clear.
  • You can sift through lots of different online analytics to find the information, but it takes way too long. SpyFu has it all in one place!
Read full review
ScreenShots

Ahrefs Screenshots

Screenshot of Analyze backlinks and keywords of any website to find opportunities for your organic traffic growthScreenshot of Check your website for 100+ pre-defined SEO issuesScreenshot of Get relevant keyword ideas supported by accurate SEO metricsScreenshot of Find the most shared and linked-to content on any topicScreenshot of Track your and your competitors' search rankings