Side-by-side comparison · SEO & Analytics
Ahrefs vs Screaming Frog SEO Spider vs Surfer
Everything that matters when choosing between them, in one place: our rating, what each can do, what they cost, and the trade-offs.
Comparing 3 tools, the maximum.
At a glance
Ahrefs
4.4Pick it if: Marketers and business owners who want to see what competitors rank for and find keywords worth chasing.
Screaming Frog SEO Spider
4.0Pick it if: Anyone who needs a thorough technical check of a site, especially before or after a redesign or migration.
Surfer
3.9Pick it if: Content marketers and bloggers who publish regularly and want each page to have a fair shot at ranking.
Ahrefs scores highest overall, but Screaming Frog SEO Spider gives you more for your money. Which one is right comes down to what you value most.
Overview
| Attribute | Ahrefs | Screaming Frog SEO Spider | Surfer |
|---|---|---|---|
| In one line | Keyword research, backlink checks and site audits, all in one toolkit. | Crawls your whole site the way Google does and lists what's broken. | Tells you what to add to a page so it can rank for a chosen keyword. |
| Pricing model | Freemium | Freemium | Paid |
| Starting price | $29/mo | £199/user/yr | $49/mo |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes | No |
| Works with Claude Code | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Rating breakdown
Our scores out of 5. The higher bar in each row is highlighted.
| Attribute | Ahrefs | Screaming Frog SEO Spider | Surfer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Overall rating | 4.4Winner | 4.0 | 3.9 |
| Ease of useHow quickly someone non-technical gets value from it. | 4.5 | 2.5 | 4.5 |
| FeaturesHow much it can do, and how well the pieces fit together. | 5.0 | 4.5 | 3.5 |
| Output qualityHow good the results are before you fix them. | 4.5 | 4.5 | 3.5 |
| Value for moneyWhat you get for the price, including the free plan. | 3.5 | 4.5 | 3.5 |
| Speed & reliabilityHow fast it is and how often it falls over. | 4.5 | 4.0 | 4.5 |
Feature comparison
A tick means it does this today. A dash means we haven't checked.
| Attribute | Ahrefs | Screaming Frog SEO Spider | Surfer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Access & platform | |||
| Free plan | Yes | Yes | No |
| Mobile app | No | No | No |
| Desktop app | No | Yes | No |
| Browser extension | Yes | No | Yes |
| API access | Yes | No | Yes |
| Teams & business | |||
| Team workspace | Yes | No | Yes |
| Enterprise plan or SSO | Yes | No | Yes |
| Connects to other apps | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Open source or self-hosted | No | No | No |
| AI abilities | |||
| Works with your files | Yes | Yes | – |
| Understands images | No | No | No |
| Makes images | No | No | – |
| Makes video | No | No | No |
| Writes code | No | No | No |
| Runs agents or automations | No | No | No |
| Learns your brand or style | No | No | Yes |
| Works in many languages | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Capabilities score | 8/ 17 | 5/ 17 | 7/ 17 |
Pricing
Plans as listed on each vendor's site when we last checked. Confirm before you buy.
| Attribute | Ahrefs | Screaming Frog SEO Spider | Surfer |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plans | Ahrefs Free Free Checking the health and backlinks of a site you own. | Free Free Small sites and one-off checks. | Discovery $49/mo billed yearly A solo blogger publishing a couple of posts a week. |
Starter $29/mo Occasional keyword research on a tight budget. | Paid licenceOur pick £199/user/yr Agencies and anyone with a site over 500 pages. | AI Search Analytics $82/mo billed yearly Brands that only want to track their AI visibility. | |
LiteOur pick $129/mo A business doing its own SEO seriously. | StandardOur pick $99/mo billed yearly A small content team publishing weekly. | ||
Standard $249/mo Freelancers and small agencies. | Pro $182/mo billed yearly Agencies managing content for several brands. | ||
Advanced $449/mo Agencies and in-house teams with many sites. | Peace of Mind $299/mo billed yearly High-volume publishers who want no limits. | ||
Enterprise $1,499/mo billed yearly Large companies that need SSO and unlimited data. | Enterprise Custom Large organisations with security requirements. | ||
| Which plan to pick | Start on Ahrefs Free to audit your own site. If you want to research competitors and keywords every week, go straight to Lite; the Starter plan's credits run out too quickly to be useful for more than the odd lookup. Each plan includes one user, and extra seats cost $40 to $80 a month. | The free version is enough for most small businesses because it includes every feature and only caps the crawl at 500 pages. Buy a licence when your site or your clients' sites go past that. The price is listed in pounds with dollar and euro options at checkout. | Discovery is enough if you publish a couple of posts a week. Standard is the sensible pick for a team because it adds collaboration and triples the document count. The prices shown are for yearly billing; Surfer says monthly billing costs up to 17 percent more. |
Key features
| Attribute | Ahrefs | Screaming Frog SEO Spider | Surfer |
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Pros and cons
| Attribute | Ahrefs | Screaming Frog SEO Spider | Surfer |
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Who each one is for
| Attribute | Ahrefs | Screaming Frog SEO Spider | Surfer |
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| You'll find it used by |
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How we compare
Ratings are our own, from using each tool, across ease of use, features, output quality, value for money, speed & reliability. The "Visit" buttons may use affiliate links, which never affect a score.
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