Overview
Semrush (formerly SEMrush) is one of the most widely used digital marketing platforms in the world, with over 10 million users. It combines SEO, PPC, social media, and content marketing tools in a single platform — making it particularly attractive for marketing teams who need more than just organic search data.
We've compared it extensively against Ahrefs and Screaming Frog. For keyword research breadth and PPC data, Semrush leads. For pure backlink data quality, Ahrefs still has the edge.
- Excellent keyword research database (25B+ keywords)
- Best-in-class PPC competitor research
- Strong local SEO features
- Detailed site audit with 130+ checks
- Covers SEO and paid search in one platform
- Regular new feature releases
- Backlink data not as deep as Ahrefs
- Interface can feel overwhelming
- Expensive at higher tiers
- Some data inaccuracies at scale
Key Features
Keyword Magic Tool
One of the best keyword research interfaces available. It surfaces thousands of related keyword ideas, groups them by topic, and provides keyword difficulty scores, search volume, and CPC data. For organic and paid keyword research combined, it's hard to beat.
Domain Overview & Competitor Analysis
The Domain Overview report gives a quick snapshot of any domain's organic traffic, paid traffic, backlinks, and top keywords. Semrush's competitive analysis features are particularly strong for understanding competitor keyword strategies and PPC budgets.
Site Audit
Semrush's Site Audit crawls your website and categorises issues by severity across 130+ technical checks — broken links, HTTPS issues, duplicate content, Core Web Vitals, and more. Reports are clear and actionable, with fix instructions for each issue type.
Position Tracking
Reliable and flexible rank tracking across multiple locations, devices, and SERP features including featured snippets and local packs. Daily update frequency is a plus. SERP feature tracking is more detailed than Ahrefs.
Score Breakdown
Pricing
Semrush offers three main plans. All include core SEO features; higher tiers unlock more projects, keywords tracked, and advanced features.
- 5 projects
- 500 keywords to track
- 10,000 results per report
- SEO, PPC, research tools
- 15 projects
- 1,500 keywords to track
- 30,000 results per report
- Content Marketing Toolkit
- Historical data access
- 40 projects
- 5,000 keywords to track
- 50,000 results per report
- API access
- Share of Voice metric
Our Verdict
Semrush is an excellent, feature-rich platform best suited to teams that need SEO and paid search data in one place. Its keyword research and competitive intelligence capabilities are best-in-class. If you need PPC research, local SEO features, and a more all-encompassing marketing platform, Semrush beats Ahrefs.