Semrush vs SISTRIX

Semrush

The Site Audit engine is real: documented modules for crawlability and indexability, canonicals, structured data, mobile parity and rendering, Core Web Vitals judged against Google's published good and poor bounds at the 75th percentile, Search Console data referenced in the workflow, and multi-million-page crawling on the Enterprise tier. We found no public information on log-file analysis, regression detection between crawls, or whether issues are prioritised by traffic impact rather than count — the captured pages promise a prioritized fix list without stating the ranking basis. Strong enough to bill clients against, a step short of diagnostic.

SISTRIX

Scheduled weekly crawls at stated scale (30.000 up to 4.000.000 crawled URLs per month depending on tier), JavaScript rendering built on the same technology as the official Googlebot, and error categories sorted by importance including duplicate content and missing structured data — that holds up across forty client sites. Daily Lighthouse measurements stored permanently with raw JSON download, plus lab and field Core Web Vitals, make this more than a checklist. We found no public information on log-file analysis or on comparing the crawl against what Google actually fetched, which is where diagnosis should go next.

Semrush

Volume, difficulty and CPC are documented alongside a rich SERP-feature picture including AI Overviews, a 30-day SERP volatility chart, on-page gap recommendations, keyword cannibalization analysis on the ProPlus tier, and monthly snapshots back to 2012. We found no public information on intent classification, topic clustering, content briefs with entity coverage, or the depth of the German-language data, which matters as much as the English for my German clients. Cannibalisation detection across forty sites earns it a mark above the middle.

SISTRIX

The German-language depth is the whole reason agencies here buy it: the vendor describes the largest keyword database for the German and European market, with search volume, click prices and competition intensity, a documented intent method derived from SERP structure, and automatic topic clustering. Competitor keyword analysis by URL and a content planner with monthly uses are also evidenced. We found no public information on content briefs with entity coverage, cannibalisation detection, or SERP composition tracked over time.

Semrush

The vendor puts its own numbers on the record: 26.4 billion keywords, 43 trillion backlinks, 808 million domain profiles and 142 geo databases, with daily updates documented, rankings at city and country level on desktop and mobile, and a Map Rank Tracker with heatmaps for local work. Historical keyword snapshots back to 2012 are exposed through the API, and even the position-calculation cap at twenty-one is documented rather than hidden. We found no public information on the backlink index refresh cadence, lost-and-found link detection, or any explanation of discrepancies against Search Console.

SISTRIX

The update cycle is documented openly — important keywords daily, notable-volume keywords weekly, everything at least monthly, with keywords moving between cycles as demand shifts — and project keywords can update daily across more than 200 country and language combinations including per-city queries, with a full eleven-year history on the upper tiers. Backlink metrics (links, Domain-Pop, Host-Pop, Net-Pop) are exposed through the connector and API. We found no public information on the size or refresh cadence of the backlink index, nor on lost-and-found link detection.

Semrush

This is nearly my wishlist: a Pro Report add-on with branding and white-labeling, monthly/weekly/daily scheduling, sharing by link and twenty-plus external integrations, Google Analytics and Search Console on the Base tier, up to forty monitored websites on the Advanced plan, and API v3 and v4 with OAuth 2.0, a checkable unit balance and per-endpoint costs such as twenty units per keyword-metrics request. Two things hold it back: we found no public information on data-warehouse or BigQuery export, and the terms allow API use solely for internal business purposes, routing any tool with external users to a sales conversation — friction when you rebill forty licences.

SISTRIX

The API is one a team can genuinely build on: documented endpoint groups for domains, keywords, links and projects, JSON or XML responses, a sandbox, a free key, and credit costs stated per function with unpriced functions free. Projects with role-based invites for team members and stakeholders give me real multi-client management, and dashboards, report quotas and the Search Console and Analytics connection all sit in the tier table. We found no public information on white-label branding for client-facing reports or on a data-warehouse export, which is what stands between this and a report I hand a client unedited.

Semrush

Exit terms are at least written down: a documented thirty-day minimum before erasure after termination and a thirty-day backup window after suspension notice, with API export in JSON or CSV and keyword snapshots back to 2012. But the API is metered in units per request, the terms prohibit caching received data beyond one month without written consent — which blocks mirroring history continuously — and scraping is barred. We found no public information on a complete bulk export of a full account's ranking and crawl history.

SISTRIX

Exports run through CSV, Excel and Google Sheets plus an API intended for automated export, stored Lighthouse JSON is downloadable raw, and the tier table states the data history (three months up to a full eleven years). Every export and API call draws on a weekly credit allowance that resets each Monday, and further credits are billed monthly at 75,00 € for 10.000 per week. We found no public information on any retention period after cancellation, so I cannot tell a client what happens to their history when we move them.

Semrush

The contracting entity is Semrush Inc., a Delaware corporation in Boston, and the privacy policy states personal data may be transferred to the United States and to US service providers, with Standard Contractual Clauses cited as the safeguard and a Prague entity named as joint controller. We found no public information on data residency for account and crawl data or on a published subprocessor list — the captured pages name only incidental processors such as Google Analytics. Tolerable for a tool holding my clients' strategy rather than their customers' identities, but not something I could hand a German client unedited.

SISTRIX

The homepage marketing copy says data is kept in Europe but names no infrastructure provider, and no privacy-policy or DPA excerpt corroborates it; the contracting side appears on captured pages only as the company name SISTRIX GmbH. We found no public information on subprocessors or on the confirmed jurisdiction of the contracting entity. For a tool holding my clients' keyword strategy rather than their customers' identities that is tolerable, but it is short of the documented chain I could show a German client.

Semrush

The add-on ledger is refreshingly exact — Base Report at €9.59/mo, Pro Report at €19.18/mo, additional users starting at €43/mo, Lead Generation at €86.31/mo — with per-tier website and keyword limits stated and fees stated as exclusive of taxes. But we found no public information on the headline tier prices, the monetary cost of an API unit, per-tier crawl caps, or overage rates, and Enterprise sits behind "Custom pricing available" and a demo request, which for anyone rebilling licences reads as a margin problem. Priced well at the edges, not yet computable as an invoice.

SISTRIX

Every tier is public with VAT treatment stated — 119 €, 239 €, 419 € and 799 € per month excluding VAT — monthly cancellable with proration explained on upgrades, and the add-ons I rebill are priced: further user accounts at a flat 24,90 € per month across tiers, additional crawled pages per 1.000 at 0,21 €, 0,16 € and 0,14 € by tier, additional projects, and 10.000 further weekly credits at 75,00 €, with the weekly export and API credit allowances in the same table. What keeps the annual invoice from being fully derivable: we found no public information on a per-keyword overage rate beyond the tier's SERP update quota, and the API credit cost is described only as typically based on the number of data points retrieved.