Semrush vs SISTRIX

Semrush

The Site Audit scope is real and broad — crawlability and indexability, redirects, Core Web Vitals judged against Google's good, needs-improvement and poor values at the 75th percentile, canonicals, structured data and internal linking — with crawl snapshots, a stated prioritised fix list, and rendered-browser checks in the fallback path. I found no public information on log-file analysis, crawl budget work, or regression detection between crawls with deploy attribution, which is what separates a diagnostic from a very good checklist.

SISTRIX

Scheduled crawling is documented at real scale (30,000 to 4,000,000 URLs a month by tier), JavaScript rendering described as built on the same technology as the official Googlebot, error categories sorted by importance with concrete fix suggestions, and Core Web Vitals handled properly with lab and field data, daily Lighthouse measurements stored permanently and downloadable as JSON. We found no public information on log-file analysis, crawl-budget analysis, canonical or indexation diagnosis, or issues ranked by traffic impact, so this reads as a strong scanner rather than a full diagnostic.

Semrush

Keyword research is deep — a stated database of over 26 billion keywords with volume, difficulty, CPC and traffic estimates, SERP features including AI Overviews with a volatility chart, cannibalisation analysis named on a paid plan, and on-page gap recommendations with historical snapshots back to 2012. I found no public information on topic clustering, intent classification or briefs built on entity coverage, and nothing that speaks to the depth of the German-language data in particular.

SISTRIX

The vendor calls its keyword database the largest for the German and European market, clusters keywords into topics automatically for a structured content strategy, and derives intent from the actual SERP composition with the point allocation published, plus competitor keyword analysis by URL and per-tier SERP feature counts. We found no public information on cannibalisation detection or content briefs with entity coverage — the two things I would commission next — and no evidence that content is scored against what currently ranks.

Semrush

Daily ranking updates are stated, tracking runs to city level with a geographic grid plus device and country choice, and the vendor publishes its own index sizes — 26.4 billion keywords, 43 trillion backlinks, 808 million domain profiles across 142 geo databases — with honest methodology notes such as unpersonalised results and the cap of position 21 in averages. I found no public information on backlink index refresh cadence, lost-and-found link detection, or how long ranking history is retained for the life of an account.

SISTRIX

The update methodology is documented unusually honestly: important keywords daily, notable-volume keywords weekly, everything at least monthly, with keywords moving to a faster cycle automatically when demand shifts, plus over 200 country and language combinations, city-level queries and desktop/mobile split, with eleven-year history on the top tiers and three months on the entry tier. The backlink half is the hole: we found no public information on backlink index size or refresh cadence, SERP feature attribution, or lost-and-found link detection.

Semrush

The API is genuinely buildable — documented v3 and v4 endpoints with OAuth 2.0 and API keys, json and csv responses, per-endpoint cost in units (for example 20 units per keyword-metrics request) with a checkable balance — and reporting reaches white-label via the Pro Report add-on's branding, scheduling, sharing by link and Google Analytics and Search Console integration. I found no public information on data-warehouse or BigQuery export, and the terms restrict API use to internal business purposes, with any tool serving external users routed to sales.

SISTRIX

The API is genuinely buildable: HTTP requests in JSON or XML, a sandbox, wrappers in four languages, a documented fair-use policy, and credit costs published as a per-data-point principle with weekly allocations per tier and a priced add-on pack, alongside Search Console and Analytics integration, per-tier dashboards and reports, team roles and a free Data Studio connector still marked in development. We found no public information on white-label client reporting, data-warehouse or BigQuery export, or a versioned API with a deprecation policy.

Semrush

Export exists through the API in open response formats, and the terms document a 30-day window to back up data after suspension and a minimum of 30 days before data may be erased after termination. But that export is metered in API units, restricted to internal business purposes, and caching retrieved data beyond one month requires written consent — so continuously mirroring the archive is out — while on account deletion the vendor states it bears no responsibility for the data.

SISTRIX

Rankings, keywords and crawl results export as CSV, Excel or Google Sheets from the interface and via API in JSON or XML, with the eleven-year history exportable on the top tiers and stored Lighthouse data downloadable as JSON. But every export draws on weekly credit allocations, history is capped at three months on the entry tier, and we found no public information on a retention period or grace period after cancellation — exit is workable while you pay, not designed for.

Semrush

The contracting entity is a Delaware corporation, transfers to the United States are covered by Standard Contractual Clauses, and I found no public information on hosting location or a subprocessor list for the core services — only merch-store and affiliate subprocessors are named. The EU touchpoints are a Prague entity named as joint controller and Google Ireland for analytics, which does not amount to a European data chain.

SISTRIX

The only residency statement is homepage marketing copy saying data is kept in Europe, with no named infrastructure provider, no subprocessor list and no privacy policy or DPA excerpt captured to corroborate it. The company appears as SISTRIX GmbH on its own pages, but the captured pages give no confirmation of contracting jurisdiction or ownership.

Semrush

Per-tier limits are public and the extras a buyer gets stung on are priced — additional users from €43/mo, reporting add-ons at €9.59/mo and €19.18/mo — with taxes stated as exclusive of the fees. But no price figure for the main plans appears in the captured pricing pages, and I found no public information on crawl page limits per tier, overage rates, or the euro cost of an API unit; Enterprise is a custom-quote conversation.

SISTRIX

Every tier is priced publicly at 119 €, 239 €, 419 € and 799 € per month excluding VAT, with included users stated, additional users at 24,90 € per month, additional projects priced, extra crawled pages priced per 1,000, further credits for 75,00 €, monthly cancellation, proration rules and per-tier export and API credit allowances — a buyer can budget the real annual cost before the sales call. The one soft spot is API cost per endpoint, described only as typically based on the number of data points retrieved.