Semrush Vs Ahrefs 2025: An Unbiased Comparison & Which One to Choose?

If you’re looking for an all-in-one tool for all your digital marketing needs, go with Semrush. If you want precise keyword research and in-depth backlink analysis, try Ahrefs.

I’ve been using Semrush since 2015 and Ahrefs for a few months. 

These two tools offer similar features at similar price points. 

The purpose of this post is to give you an unbiased comparison of Semrush and Ahrefs, discussing key features like keyword research, competitive analysis, content marketing, site audits, backlink analysis, and more.

To pick the right choice among Ahrefs and Semrush, you need to consider a few things like;

• Budget
• Website needs (SEO, PPC, content marketing, etc)
• Overall usability 

Let’s find out which tool works best for your website needs in 2025.

Semrush and Ahrefs Comparison Overview

The #1 reason to compare Semrush and Ahrefs tools is both tools offer lots of similar features for SEO. Also, there’s not much of a difference in their pricing.

Semrush is excellent for in-depth competitor research, PPC data, and site audits, while Ahrefs dominates keyword research and backlink analysis. 

Ahrefs is a popular SEO software provider that offers key features like content explorer, site explorer, backlink analysis, etc. It has a strong hold in keyword research and backlink analysis.

Both tools provide keyword research, competitor analysis, rank tracking, and technical site audits. Both tools come at a similar price (Ahrefs for $108/mo and Semrush for $117.33/mo). Both tools offer massive databases for keyword and backlink research.

Key Differences

• Free trials: Semrush gives me access to a 14-day free trial, whereas Ahrefs does not offer a free trial.
• Features: Semrush offers 55 tools, whereas Ahrefs gives me access to 10+ tools.
• Ease of use: Ahrefs is more beginner-friendly, whereas Semrush has a steeper learning curve.

Best For

• Semrush is suitable for bloggers, SEO professionals, in-house SEO agencies, and high-traffic websites who want an all-in-one SEO toolkit.
• Ahrefs is great for content marketers, solopreneurs, SEO professionals, and small businesses who want accurate keyword research and backlink analysis tools. 

Considerations

It takes some time to get used to both tools. So, there’s a learning curve for beginners on how to use their platform. Ahrefs offers a simpler interface than Semrush. However, Ahrefs doesn’t offer PPC or social media tools, unlike Semrush.

Which tool is better for users in 2025? 

Semrush offers better value for money. Although Semrush is slightly expensive (It starts at $117.33/mo compared to Ahrefs’ $108/mo), it offers way more features.

It depends on your website needs. If you’re looking for an all-in-one tool for SEO/PPC needs, go with Semrush. If you’re looking for a simple yet powerful SEO tool focused on backlinks and keyword analysis, Ahrefs is the better choice.

Here’s a table comparing Semrush and Ahrefs with key features and pricing;

Feature	Semrush	Ahrefs
Primary Focus	SEO, content marketing, PPC, and social media	SEO and competitive analysis
Keyword Database	Over 26.4 billion keywords	Over 28.7 billion keywords
Overall tools & features	Over 55 tools	Over 20 tools
Backlink Database	Over 43 trillion	Over 14 trillion
PPC Advertising	Full set of tools	Limited
Pricing	Starts at $117.33/mo	Starts at $108/mo
Free Trial	Yes, 14-day free trial	No

Try Semrush

Try Ahrefs

Now, let’s dive into the details.

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Look at User Interface and Experience

Winner: Ahrefs

Ahrefs has the simplest user interface that even beginners can quickly understand.

Here’s what the interface of Semrush looks like;

As shown above, Semrush’s interface is more detailed, offering plenty of tools, comprehensive reports, and intuitive navigation. I can also see critical data from the SEO dashboard, including position tracking, organic traffic, site audit, etc.

Here’s what the interface of Ahrefs looks like;

As shown above, Ahrefs’ interface is comparatively simpler than Semrush, making it easier for beginners to navigate. There’s not much of a learning curve required, as it offers a simple navigation menu to browse its tools.

I can also see important metrics like site health, organic traffic, keyword rankings, etc from its dashboard. 

Both tools provide quick insights with minimal clicks, allowing me to analyze backlinks, keywords, and organic traffic quickly.

Verdict: Semrush takes more time to get used to its platform, as it offers too many features under one roof. Ahrefs, on the other hand, offers only core features, and its interface is easy to use, even for beginners.

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Words on Keyword Research Module:

Winner: Ahrefs

Keyword research is the process of identifying relevant search terms that people use to find information online.

It helps me find out what people want, optimize content, and improve my website’s SEO rankings. Proper keyword research is the key to attracting high-quality visitors from Google.

Here’s how I use both Semrush and Ahrefs to find better keywords.

Semrush Keyword Magic Tool

Semrush offers a powerful tool called “Keyword Magic,” which has over 26 billion keywords for keyword research.

It provides excellent filtering options, including keyword difficulty scores, search volume, and keyword intent analysis. 

Here’s what the tool likes for an example keyword;

The tool also helps me find long-tail keywords, question-based queries, and keyword variations.

However, for a few less-known keywords and topics, the tool will NOT show me enough keyword data (including intent, search volume, difficulty, etc). That’s why finding accurate metrics for less-known keywords can sometimes become challenging for me.

Ahrefs Keywords Explorer Tool

Ahrefs Keywords Explorer is slightly bigger than Semrush’s keyword tool, offering me over 28.7 billion keywords.

To start, I enter any seed keyword or topic and the tool will give me a detailed overview along with keyword difficulty, search volume and traffic potential.

I can also find literally thousands of keyword suggestions for most keywords including;

• Question keywords
• Also rank for keywords
• Term match keywords that contain all of the terms of a target keyword in them

The best part is I can also find out the average word count of top-ranking articles from the SERP overview;

However, Ahrefs’ keyword explorer tool is NOT good at providing in-depth PPC keyword data for better analysis. For pure SEO purposes, it’s an excellent tool for keyword research.

Comparison of Keyword Research Tools:

Keyword Research	Semrush	Ahrefs
Keyword Database	Bigger database with over 26.3 billion keywords	Even bigger database with over 28.7 billion keywords
Keyword Difficulty	Accurate based on SERP data	Accurate based on backlink analysis
Search Volume	Available, 12-month average search volume	Available, 12-month average search volume forecasts.
Keyword Intent	Available	Available
Keyword Trends	Available	Available
Parent Topic for Keywords	Not Available	Available
Traffic Potential	Not Available	Available

Verdict: Both Ahrefs and Semrush offer massive keyword databases in the market. However, Ahrefs’ keywords explorer is more in-depth and provides accurate keyword difficulty scores. Using Ahrefs, I can also quickly estimate organic traffic potential for my target keywords.

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Competitive Analysis:

Winner: Semrush

Competitive analysis is what helps me identify my TRUE competitors in Google, find their best content, backlinks, etc so I can build a better SEO strategy for my site.

Semrush Organic Research Tool

For competitor research, Semrush offers an “Organic Research” tool, which helps me identify my competitors’ best-performing keywords, topics, etc.

Here’s what it looks like;

As shown above, I can see the number of ranking keywords, estimated traffic, traffic cost, etc.

The above domain, which is Backlinko, ranks for over 118,000 keywords. To find low-hanging keywords, I simply choose “KD: Possible,” and I’ll get easy-to-rank topic ideas.

I can also see my competitors’ keyword position changes and monitor how they are ranking for my target keywords.

I didn’t find any drawbacks with Semrush’s organic research tool, as it gives me every single detail about my competitors’ SEO strategies.

Ahrefs Competitive Analysis Tool

Ahrefs’ Content Gap tool helps me find keywords my competitors rank for but I don’t so I can find missed opportunities.

Here’s an example;

As shown above, once I click the Competitors’ positions dropdown, select All competitors, I can find keywords both competitors rank for but I don’t.

I can use its Link Intersect tool to identify missing backlink opportunities. I can use filters like Do-follow and filter for DR: From 50.

However, Ahrefs’ Competitive Analysis tool is not as comprehensive as Semrush as it lacks detailed features.

Competitive Analysis	Semrush	Ahrefs
Traffic Analysis	Detailed for both SEO and PPC traffic sources	Focuses mainly on organic traffic
Keyword Gap Tool	Detailed	Limited
PPC Data	Available and detailed!	Limited

Verdict: If I want to analyze my competitors in-depth to find better SEO and PPC opportunities, I will go with Semrush, as it offers me all the tools I need. Ahrefs, on the other hand, excels in organic research but lacks in providing me detailed PPC data.

Now let’s head to the backlink tools.

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Backlink Analysis Tools:

Winner: Semrush

Backlink analysis helps me identify the quantity, quality, and sources of BACKLINKS pointing to a website. 

Backlinks are essential for any website to improve its rankings and overall domain authority.  Both tools offer massive databases with trillions of links for backlink analysis. 

Semrush Backlink Analytics Tool

I often use Semrush’s Backlink Analytics tool to track my competitor’s website’s link profile and identify link opportunities. It gives me an overview of their links, sources, outbound domains, etc.

Here’s what it looks like;

I can also find changes in the number of new and lost backlinks for any domain;

However, Semrush’s backlink analysis tool sometimes misses backlinks or reports outdated backlink data.

Ahrefs Site Explorer Tool

Ahrefs Site Explorer tool gives me an in-depth backlink profile of ANY domain.

Here’s what it looks like;

I’ll have all the details from DR to backlinks, organic and paid search traffic.

I can check traffic by location to see where visitors come from.

I can find paid keywords that also rank in the top 1 organically. This helps me identify high-performing content opportunities.

However, Ahrefs isn’t as good as Semrush at identifying what people are really searching for when they use certain keywords. This makes it harder to understand user intent.

Comparison of Backlink Analysis Tools:

Backlinks Tools	Semrush	Ahrefs
Backlink Database	43 Trillion Links	35 Trillion Links
Link Index Freshness	Updated daily, historical data available	Updated every 15 to 30 minutes, with historical data
Backlink Quality Analysis	It uses the “Authority Score” metric based on links and traffic.	It uses the “Domain Rating (DR)” metric based on link authority.
Dofollow/Nofollow Links	Available	Available

Verdict: In my opinion, Both Semrush and Ahrefs offer massive databases for backlink analysis, but Semrush stands out with its toxic link detection feature, making it great for disavowing bad links from my site. However, Ahrefs is known for updating its backlinks index every 15 minutes.

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Content Marketing Tools:

Winner: Semrush

Content marketing is all about creating great content that’s worth sharing. Both these tools offer powerful features that help me find great topics and create share-worthy content.

Semrush Content Marketing Tools

Semrush offers me an all-in-one content marketing toolkit.

I can use it for topic research, where I simply enter a topic and the tool will help me with lots of ideas for engaging content.

I can click on any particular topic cluster and it will show search volume, difficulty, headline ideas, questions, and more.

It also offers “SEO content template”, which automatically generates content briefs and SEO recommendations to create SEO-friendly content with just a few clicks.

I can also use its “SEO Writing Assistant” to automatically create content, rephrase sentences, improve the readability of existing content, etc.

However, some of Semrush’s content marketing tools are paid add-ons, such as “ContentShake AI” which costs $60/mo (on top of the subscription fee).

Ahrefs Content Explorer Tool

Ahrefs offers an exclusive tool called “Content Explorer,” which helps me find and analyze top-performing content in my niche.

For any topic, Content Explorer gives me essential metrics like: authors, published date, word count, and so on.

It also gives me actionable use cases to find low competition topics.

One more thing I like about this tool is that I can easily find low-ranking pages and republish them with relevant content to increase their rankings. I need to search for;

• Pages that have only been published once
• Pages which are older than 12 months and 
• Pages that get up to 50 search visits a month.

However, Content Explorer is NOT an exclusive all-in-one toolkit, unlike Semrush. It can help discover great topics with traffic potential, but it doesn’t offer tools for a complete content strategy.

Comparison of Content Marketing Tools:

Here’s a comparison table for Semrush and Ahrefs content marketing tools:

Content Marketing Tools	Semrush	Ahrefs
Content Ideas & Research	Yes, a topic research tool for finding trending topics	Yes, content explorer for finding top-performing content by shares & backlinks
Content Optimization	Available	Not available
Content Gap Analysis	Available	Available
SEO Content Template	Available	Not available
SEO Writing Assistant	Available	Not available

Verdict: Although Ahrefs offers essential features for finding top-performing content, it doesn’t provide dedicated tools. On the other hand, Semrush offers a comprehensive content marketing toolkit with tools for topic research, content optimization, and more.

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Site Audit and Technical SEO:

Winner: Semrush

Site audits help me run a detailed SEO analysis of my entire site. These audits often show me technical and SEO issues that are preventing my site from getting better Google rankings.

Both tools offer powerful site audit features. Let’s find out which one offers the best suggestions.

Semrush Site Audit Tool

Semrush’s Site Audit tool helps me identify over 100 issues based on priority and offers suggestions on how to fix them.

Once I run the site audit crawling, Semrush gives me a health score depending on its issues.

Here’s what it looks like;

As shown above, I’ll get a site health score, which is based on the number of errors and warnings found on my site. The higher the score, the fewer problems my site has.

If I click on the issues from the “Issues” tab, I’ll get a detailed breakdown of each problem, including its severity, affected pages, and recommendations for fixing it.

I prefer Semrush’s Site Audit because it offers a faster crawling speed whenever I crawl my site, allowing me to analyze my pages more quickly.  

Ahrefs Site Audit

Ahrefs Site Audit feature allows me to identify, prioritize, and fix over 170 technical and on-page SEO issues on my site.

Ahrefs, just like Semrush, checks my website for SEO issues and gives a health score. This score shows how many of my website’s pages (internal URLs) are working correctly.

Here’s what it looks like;

If I scroll down a bit, under the “Top Issues” tab, I’ll find a list of issues severely impacting my site’s health score.

Comparison of Site Audit Tools:

Feature	Semrush	Ahrefs
Crawl Credits	100,000 crawl credits	100,000 crawl credits
Issue Detection	Identifies 140+ SEO issues	Identifies 100+ SEO issues
Integration	Google Analytics & Search Console	Google Search Console only
Crawling Speed	Faster	Average
Suggestions on Fixing Issues	Detailed	Limited

Verdict: In my experience, Semrush and Ahrefs offer powerful site audit tools but serve different users. Semrush gives me a detailed technical SEO audit with fixes, making it great for website owners. Ahrefs is good at in-depth link analysis and indexability.

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Pricing and Value:

Winner: Semrush

Here’s a quick overview of the pricing plans for both tools.

Semrush Pricing

Semrush is currently offering three pricing plans;

Plan	Price	Plan Limits
Pro	$139.95 monthly ($117.33/mo if billed annually)	5 projects, 500 keywords to track, 10,000 results per report
Guru	$249.95 monthly ($208.33/mo if billed annually)	15 projects, 1,500 keywords to track, 30,000 results per report
Business	$499.95 monthly ($416.66/mo if billed annually)	40 projects, 5,000 keywords to track, 50,000 results per report

Ahrefs Pricing

Ahrefs is currently offering four pricing plans;

Plan	Price	Plan Limits
Lite	$129 monthly ($108/mo if billed annually)	5 projects, 6 months of history, 1 user, 500 credits per user, 750 tracked keywords
Standard	$249 monthly ($208/mo if billed annually)	20 projects, 2 years of history, 1 user, Unlimited credits per user, 2,000 tracked keywords
Advanced	$449 monthly ($374/mo if billed annually)	50 projects, 5 years of history, 1 user, Unlimited credits per user, 5,000 tracked keywords
Enterprise	Starts at $14,990 per year	100 projects, Unlimited history, 3 users, Unlimited credits per user, 10,000 tracked keywords + options for adding more users

Value for money: Semrush offers the best bang for the buck, considering my SEO needs. Because it provides over 55 tools with massive backlinks and keyword databases. This is also why I’ve been using Semrush over Ahrefs since 2016.

Free trials: Semrush offers a 14-day free trial for both Pro and Guru plans.

Try Semrush 14 Days Free Trial

Ahrefs does NOT offer any free trials. 

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Pros & Cons

Semrush Pros & Cons:

Semrush Pros	Semrush Cons
Access to over 55 tools for one price!	Semrush is slightly more expensive compared to Ahrefs.
Offers a full suite of content marketing tools, including content ideation, content optimization, content audit, etc.	It takes time for beginners to learn how to use the platform, as it offers too many tools.
Offers everything I need in one place, including keyword research, backlink analysis, site audits, and competitor analysis.
Unlike Ahrefs, Semrush provides detailed PPC ad data with historical data.
It offers all the tools for social media scheduling, tracking, and posting.
Provides a powerful site audit tool to find and fix SEO issues.
Connects with Google Analytics, Google Search Console, etc.

Ahrefs Pros & Cons:

Ahrefs Pros	Ahrefs Cons
Massive databases for keyword and backlink research.	Ahrefs does not offer a free trial, unlike Semrush.
The interface is clean and simpler to use than Semrush.	It doesn’t offer in-depth PPC data.
Provides accurate keyword tracking.	It lacks social media management and paid advertising analysis.
The tool is slightly cheaper than Semrush.
Ahrefs doesn’t overwhelm users (especially beginners) with too many features.
Its Content Explorer tool is great for bloggers, as it helps identify top content, backlinks, social shares, and more.

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FAQs

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Conclusion

So, which tool is right for you?

Choose Semrush if: You need an all-in-one toolkit that offers all the tools for SEO, content marketing, PPC, and social media.

Choose Ahrefs if: Your primary focus is SEO and you need in-depth keyword data with a large keyword database.

So, which tool are you going to use: Ahrefs or Semrush? Have any more questions? Let me know in the comments.