Ahrefs vs. SpyFu

Overview
ProductRatingMost Used ByProduct SummaryStarting Price
Ahrefs
Score 8.9 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 7.9 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 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
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 …
Top Pros
Top Cons
Features
AhrefsSpyFu
SEO
Comparison of SEO features of Product A and Product B
Ahrefs
8.4
68 Ratings
8% above category average
SpyFu
7.2
51 Ratings
8% below category average
Keyword analysis9.365 Ratings6.951 Ratings
Backlink management8.866 Ratings5.939 Ratings
SERP ranking tracking8.764 Ratings8.143 Ratings
Page grader8.259 Ratings7.729 Ratings
Competitive analysis8.666 Ratings9.150 Ratings
Site audit / diagnostics8.761 Ratings7.132 Ratings
Site recommendations7.558 Ratings7.030 Ratings
Task management7.831 Ratings6.120 Ratings
SEO Channels
Comparison of SEO Channels features of Product A and Product B
Ahrefs
8.6
60 Ratings
12% above category average
SpyFu
7.7
38 Ratings
1% above category average
Local SEO8.148 Ratings7.632 Ratings
Social SEO7.946 Ratings8.027 Ratings
Mobile SEO8.745 Ratings8.029 Ratings
Global SEO9.454 Ratings7.034 Ratings
SEO Platform & Account Management
Comparison of SEO Platform & Account Management features of Product A and Product B
Ahrefs
8.5
57 Ratings
1% above category average
SpyFu
8.7
27 Ratings
3% above category average
Multi-domain support8.754 Ratings8.927 Ratings
Integration with web analytics tools8.429 Ratings8.518 Ratings
Best Alternatives
AhrefsSpyFu
Small Businesses
Google PageSpeed Insights
Google PageSpeed Insights
Score 9.9 out of 10
Google PageSpeed Insights
Google PageSpeed Insights
Score 9.9 out of 10
Medium-sized Companies
Advanced Web Ranking
Advanced Web Ranking
Score 8.3 out of 10
Advanced Web Ranking
Advanced Web Ranking
Score 8.3 out of 10
Enterprises
Dupli Checker (DupliChecker.com)
Dupli Checker (DupliChecker.com)
Score 8.7 out of 10
Dupli Checker (DupliChecker.com)
Dupli Checker (DupliChecker.com)
Score 8.7 out of 10
All AlternativesView all alternativesView all alternatives
User Ratings
AhrefsSpyFu
Likelihood to Recommend
8.6
(73 ratings)
8.1
(61 ratings)
Likelihood to Renew
10.0
(5 ratings)
10.0
(10 ratings)
Usability
10.0
(2 ratings)
-
(0 ratings)
Support Rating
8.8
(14 ratings)
7.6
(13 ratings)
User Testimonials
AhrefsSpyFu
Likelihood to Recommend
Ahrefs
It gives the best report to us which helps us to find the opportunity to build backlinks. Another main feature that makes Ahrefs a safe and sound approach to SEO is that it provides information about duplicate content, URLs, redirects along with other errors that can be dangerous to the website.
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
  • Backlink data: Ahrefs continues to provide the best backlink data in the industry when compared to other tools. Other players are playing catching up, but as a first mover, Ahrefs is ahead of the game by far.
  • Keyword data: Ahrefs provides extremely valuable keyword data. Though I rank them second in this category, the data that they provide is comparable to the first ranked player.
  • Content Explorer: I don't think other industry tools (SEO specific) has a content explorer as useful as Ahrefs. Their content explorer works great for identifying top content and trends for multiple industries.
  • Rank Tracker: This rank tracker is better than the average tracker and Ahrefs provides a large limit for tracked keywords. Though they have moved away from daily updates, the rank tracker is great for bench marking progress.
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
  • Anchor text alert notifications for a specific domain would be nice to have.
  • Would also be nice to set a specific client domain and then be able to pick 5 competitor sites to compare it to instead of entering in the client site and then 4 competitors to compare.
  • Adding emails to forward the exports to from running a report would be good too.
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
No answers on this topic
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
I think when it comes to keyword tracking, Ahrefs is not as good BrightEdge, but Ahrefs Site Explorer trumps BrightEdge when it comes to anything backlink related. I would use Ahrefs Site Explorer for backlink analysis, identifying 404 error pages, examining anchor texts, and exploring top content. However, I would utilze BrightEdge for keyword and ranking information
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
  • Identify the most effective keywords for content creation and optimizing existing content, which can help to increase organic traffic to your website.
  • Track backlinks, monitor the competition, and identify potential link building opportunities, which can help to improve your search engine rankings.
  • Analyze the top-performing pages on any website, which can help to optimize your own content and improve user experience.
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