Ahrefs vs Semrush

Ahrefs

Site Audit is a real crawler with the knobs that matter: documented examples of a 10,000-page or 48-hour stop limit, speed settings up to 30,000 URLs per minute, scheduling by day, time and timezone, a JavaScript execution toggle, HTTP-authenticated crawling on Advanced and higher, and PageSpeed Insights flagging low-scoring pages — though through the customer's own Google API key. That clears the mid bar for crawling at scale. I found no public information on log-file or Search Console comparison, indexation or canonical diagnosis, structured-data validation, or issues prioritised by traffic impact rather than count, so the audit reads as a configurable list rather than a diagnosis.

Semrush

The captured audit material runs well past a checklist: crawlability and indexability, canonicals, structured data, mobile parity and rendering, AI crawler access, Core Web Vitals judged against Google's good/needs-improvement/poor bands at the 75th percentile, a snapshot-based workflow across crawls, and multi-million-page crawling at the enterprise tier. It stops short of genuine diagnosis: we found no public information on log-file analysis, crawl budget analysis, or prioritisation by traffic impact rather than count — the only phrasing captured is a prioritized fix list — and regression detection between crawls is likewise undocumented.

Ahrefs

The keyword documentation shows genuine depth: volume, KD, clicks, CPC, intent filtering, Parent Topic, volume forecasting, a growth metric for trending keywords, and SERP feature tracking down to position-level for AI Overviews and featured snippets on every plan. For closing the loop back to the customer's own pages, I found no public information on content briefs with entity coverage, cannibalisation detection, or the depth of German-language data — only a help article title asking which languages Keywords Explorer supports.

Semrush

Volume, difficulty and CPC across a 26.4-billion-keyword database, SERP feature detection down to AI Overviews, a 30-day SERP volatility chart, cannibalisation analysis and content optimisation on the higher tiers — real research depth. We found no public information on intent classification, topic clustering, or content briefs with entity coverage, and nothing captured speaks to the depth of the German-language data specifically.

Ahrefs

The backlink index is documented unusually well: fresh data every 15–30 minutes, a complete refresh in about two months, and crawl priority and update speed explained through Domain Rating and URL Rating. The ranking side is silent by comparison — I found no public information on how often positions are checked, on country or device granularity, or on index size in numbers — and the only historical-data statement is 'Unlimited historical data' on the Enterprise plan. That leaves roughly half of the proprietary picture accountable to the public record.

Semrush

Daily position updates at city and country level on desktop and mobile, a published 43T backlink index, 26.4B keywords across 142 geo databases, and monthly snapshots back to 2012-01 — the vendor puts its own numbers in public. But we found no public information on the backlink index refresh cadence or lost-and-found link detection, and the terms permit erasure of all customer data not less than thirty days after termination, so retention for the life of the account is not evidenced.

Ahrefs

There is a documented, versioned API — version 3.0.0 with a rank-tracker endpoint — alongside row exports and an AI assistant that generates charts and exports. The help pages state plainly that white-labelling of reports is not allowed at present. I found no public information on Search Console or analytics integration, customisable dashboards, or stated API limits beyond 'Uncapped API access' on Enterprise.

Semrush

Strong: white-label Pro Reports at €19.18/mo with twenty-plus external integrations and sharing by link, Base Report at €9.59/mo with Google Analytics and Search Console integrations, multi-site management across tiers, OAuth 2.0 and MCP access, and API credit costs published per operation — 20 API units per request for keyword metrics, a points-times-keywords credit formula for Map Rank Tracker, and a checkable unit balance — with v3 deprecated as v4 arrives. We found no public information on data-warehouse or BigQuery export.

Ahrefs

Row export and a documented rank-tracker API endpoint mean the data is not trapped in the interface. The Enterprise plan is sold with 'Unlimited historical data' and 'Personalized higher limits & data exports', which points at caps on lower tiers, and I found no public information on bulk historical export, on export formats, or on any retention period after cancellation.

Semrush

Export runs in open formats — JSON and CSV over the API, keyword history back to 2012-01, Site Audit snapshots retrievable — and the exit terms are at least written down: thirty days to back up after suspension, erasure no sooner than thirty days after termination. But export consumes metered API units, and the terms bar caching retrieved data beyond one month without written consent, which turns continuous mirroring of your own history into a negotiation; we found no public information on a complete account export or a stated archive grace period.

Ahrefs

The contracting entity is Ahrefs Pte. Ltd. at a Singapore address, with separate US terms referencing Ahrefs Services LLC; a subprocessor list is published and a data processing agreement is available. I found no public information on hosting location or EU data residency, so nothing on the captured pages evidences a European option for where account and crawl data live.

Semrush

The captured pages show a Delaware corporation contracting from Boston, personal data transferred to the United States and to affiliates' jurisdictions, and no stated data residency, hosting location, or core subprocessor list. Standard Contractual Clauses and an EU joint controller in Prague are the only European footholds evidenced, so this sits just above the bottom.

Ahrefs

All tiers are priced publicly, from € 27 /mo to € 1,394 /mo with annual commitment required at the top, alongside a free tier, a stated saving of up to 17% annually, one included user on every plan except Enterprise, and credit mechanics documented down to which HTTP statuses consume crawl credits and the 5,000 bonus credits per verified project. I found no public information on the price of an additional user, on API credit costs, or on VAT treatment, so the real annual invoice for a growing team is not computable from public pages alone.

Semrush

The captured pricing pages are granular where they speak: 5 to 40 websites and 500 to 5,000 daily tracked keywords by tier, additional users starting at €43/mo, Base Report €9.59/mo, Pro Report €19.18/mo, fees exclusive of taxes, and cancellation at the end of the prepaid period. But we found no public information on the headline price of each tier, on crawl limits per tier, or on what an API unit costs — the annual invoice is not computable from the captures.