Ahrefs vs. Ubersuggest: Which SEO Tool To Pick In 2025?

Choosing the right SEO tool is essential for your website's search performance. Ahrefs and Ubersuggest are popular keyword research tools, each offering unique SEO features and different pricing options.

This guide breaks down exactly what each tool does best, helping you make a smart choice based on your specific needs.

By the end of this post, you'll know which tool matches your budget, needs, and SEO goals for 2025. Let’s dive in!

What Are Ahrefs and Ubersuggest?

Ahrefs and Ubersuggest are both SEO tools that help you improve your website's search engine rankings, but they serve slightly different purposes.

Ahrefs started as a backlink analysis tool and grew into a complete SEO platform. It's known for its huge backlink database and deep data. The tool offers keyword research, competitive analysis, rank tracking, site audits, and content gap analysis. Ahrefs targets serious SEO professionals, agencies, and businesses willing to invest in detailed SEO data.

Ubersuggest began as a free keyword suggestion tool. After several updates, it now offers basic versions of most Ahrefs features: keyword research, backlink analysis, site audits, and rank tracking. Ubersuggest aims at beginners, small businesses, and those looking for affordable SEO tools.

Ahrefs vs. Ubersuggest: How Do They Compare?

Let’s compare both tools side-by-side based on different factors like pricing, keyword research, backlink analysis, and more.

1. Pricing Comparison

The price difference between these tools is often the first deciding factor for most users.

Ahrefs Pricing

Ahrefs operates on a subscription-only model with the following plans:

Ubersuggest Pricing

On the other hand, Ubersuggest offers more flexible pricing:

Ubersuggest also offers a limited free version that gives you 3 searches per day, making it more accessible for beginners or occasional users.

The price gap is clear: Ubersuggest costs significantly less than Ahrefs, especially with its lifetime pricing option. For budget-conscious users or beginners, Ubersuggest offers much better value upfront.

2. Keyword Research Capabilities

Keyword research forms the foundation of any SEO strategy, and both tools handle it differently.

Ahrefs Keyword Research

Ahrefs provides deep keyword data through its Keywords Explorer. Here's what stands out:

Its database contains over 7 billion keywords across 171 countries. When you search a seed keyword, you get:

• Click metrics showing how many actual clicks a keyword gets (not just search volume).

• Keyword difficulty scores based on the backlink profiles of top-ranking pages.

• Main topic identification to help group related keywords.

• SERP analysis showing exactly what's ranking for each term.

• Position history graphs showing ranking stability.

The depth of Ahrefs' keyword data helps you spot opportunities others miss and understand exactly why certain pages rank well.

Ubersuggest Keyword Research

Ubersuggest offers simpler but still useful keyword data:

• Search volume estimates.

• SEO difficulty scores.

• Paid difficulty (for those running ads).

• CPC data for advertisers.

• Age and gender breakdown of searchers.

• Seasonal trends.

• Content ideas related to keywords.

While Ubersuggest has fewer features than Ahrefs, it presents data in a more straightforward way that beginners find easier to understand. The tool is designed to quickly get you keyword ideas without overwhelming you with too many metrics.

3. Backlink Analysis Tools

Backlinks remain crucial for SEO success, and both tools approach backlink analysis differently.

Ahrefs Backlink Analysis

Ahrefs built its reputation on backlink analysis, and it shows:

The Site Explorer tool gives you complete backlink profiles with:

• The largest commercial link database (over 35 trillion backlinks).

• Link growth charts showing gains and losses over time.

• Referring domains count and quality metrics.

• Dofollow vs. nofollow link ratios.

• Anchor text distribution.

• Link intersect tool to find sites linking to competitors but not you.

• Broken backlink checker.

The depth of Ahrefs' backlink data lets you analyze link profiles thoroughly, find link building opportunities, and identify toxic links that might hurt your site.

Ubersuggest Backlink Analysis

Ubersuggest's backlink analysis offers the basics:

• Total backlink count and referring domain numbers.

• Domain and page authority scores.

• Top referring domains and pages.

• Backlink types and anchor text data.

• Historical backlink growth.

While Ubersuggest doesn't match Ahrefs' backlink database size, it gives enough data for basic link analysis and finding obvious link opportunities. For many small websites, this level of detail is sufficient.

4. Site Audit Features

Regular site audits help identify technical SEO issues that might be holding back your rankings.

Ahrefs Site Audit

Ahrefs Site Audit tool crawls your website and finds over 100 types of SEO issues:

• Comprehensive error reports organized by severity.

• Internal link structure analysis.

• Content quality checks (duplicate content, word count, etc.).

• Page speed insights.

• Mobile-friendliness checks.

• Structured data validation.

• Heatmaps showing the most valuable pages on your site.

• HTML suggestions for title tags, meta descriptions, and headings.

The audit results link directly to other Ahrefs tools, creating a seamless workflow for fixing issues. For example, you can analyze a slow page in Site Explorer to see what might be causing speed problems.

Ubersuggest Site Audit

Ubersuggest's site audit focuses on the most common SEO issues:

• On-page SEO factors like title tags and meta descriptions.

• Basic speed checks.

• Mobile-friendliness.

• Security issues.

• Critical errors affecting your site.

• Recommendations prioritized by impact.

The Ubersuggest audit is less detailed than Ahrefs but covers the most important SEO factors. For small websites or those just starting with SEO, this level of audit often finds the biggest issues that need fixing first.

5. Rank Tracking Accuracy

Monitoring your rankings helps measure SEO success and spot problems quickly.

Ahrefs Rank Tracker

Ahrefs Rank Tracker offers detailed ranking data:

• Daily rank updates (on higher plans).

• Visibility scores showing overall search presence.

• Average position tracking.

• SERP feature tracking (featured snippets, image packs, etc.).

• Ranking by country, device, and location.

• Tags to group keywords by topic or section.

• Competitor comparison.

The detailed tracking helps you understand not just where you rank, but also why rankings change and how SERP features impact your visibility.

Ubersuggest Rank Tracker

Ubersuggest's rank tracker covers the basics:

• Current rankings for your target keywords.

• Ranking history over time.

• Desktop vs. mobile ranking differences.

• Location-based ranking.

• Basic competitor tracking.

While simpler than Ahrefs, Ubersuggest's rank tracker works well for monitoring your main keywords and spotting major ranking changes that need attention.

6. Competitive Analysis Tools

Understanding your competitors' strategies helps you find opportunities and avoid wasting time.

Ahrefs Competitive Analysis

Ahrefs excels at competitive research with several specialized tools:

• Content Gap analysis shows keywords competitors rank for but you don't.

• Top Pages report identifies competitors' best-performing content.

• Competing Domains identifies your true search competitors.

• Site Comparison shows side-by-side metrics for up to 5 sites.

• Link Intersect finds link opportunities from competitors' backlinks.

• Paid search data shows competitors' ad strategies.

These tools help you understand exactly why competitors outrank you and what specific actions you can take to catch up.

Ubersuggest Competitive Analysis

Ubersuggest offers more basic competitive insights:

• Top keywords competitors rank for.

• Estimated traffic and traffic value.

• Backlink comparison.

• Top-performing content.

• Domain comparison for key metrics.

The competitive data from Ubersuggest helps identify competitors' main strengths and top-performing content, giving you direction for your own strategy.

7. Content Research and Planning

Creating the right content is essential for SEO success, and both tools offer help with content planning.

Ahrefs Content Tools

Ahrefs helps with content planning through:

• Content Explorer, which finds popular content in your niche.

• Top Pages report showing what content performs best for competitors.

• Content Gap analysis to find untapped topic opportunities.

• Keyword ideas organized by search intent.

• Traffic potential estimates for topics.

• SERP analysis showing what content types rank best.

These tools help you plan content that has the best chance of ranking well based on what's already working in your niche.

Ubersuggest Content Tools

Ubersuggest's content planning features include:

• Content Ideas based on your keywords.

• Top-performing content in your niche.

• Keyword clusters for topic planning.

• SERP analysis for content format insights.

• Social shares data showing what content gets shared most.

While more limited than Ahrefs, Ubersuggest gives you enough data to identify promising content topics and see what's working for others in your space.

8. Ease of Use and Learning Curve

The best tool is one you'll actually use, so ease of use matters greatly.

Ahrefs - Feature-Packed With Learning Curve

Ahrefs has a steeper learning curve due to its many features and data points. New users often need time to learn how to use it effectively. However, Ahrefs offers extensive documentation, a helpful blog, and video tutorials to help users learn. Once mastered, the tool becomes very powerful.

Ubersuggest - Easy To Use With All Essential Features

Ubersuggest is designed with simplicity in mind. Its clean interface and straightforward reports make it accessible even to SEO beginners. You can get started and find useful data within minutes of signing up. This simplicity means less time learning the tool and more time implementing SEO changes.

Who Should Choose Ahrefs?

Ahrefs works best for:

• SEO professionals and agencies managing multiple client sites.

• Established businesses with dedicated SEO budgets.

• Content-heavy websites needing deep keyword research.

• Sites focusing on competitive link building.

• Users who need the most accurate and comprehensive SEO data.

• Marketers who are comfortable with complex data analysis.

If you need the most detailed SEO data and are willing to invest both money and learning time, Ahrefs offers the most complete SEO toolkit available.

Who Should Choose Ubersuggest?

Ubersuggest is ideal for:

• SEO beginners just learning the basics.

• Small businesses with limited SEO budgets.

• Bloggers and content creators handling their own SEO.

• Local businesses focusing on local SEO.

• Users who want simple, actionable SEO insights.

• Anyone who prefers a one-time payment over subscriptions.

If you need affordable, straightforward SEO tools that cover the essentials without overwhelming you with data, Ubersuggest offers excellent value.

Creating SEO Content After Your Keyword Research

Once you've gathered keyword data from either Ahrefs or Ubersuggest, the next challenge is creating optimized content that ranks well. This is where tools like SEOWriting come in.

After identifying target keywords with Ahrefs or Ubersuggest, you can use SEOWriting to create fully optimized blog posts with one click.

It creates content based on a thorough analysis of real-time SERP to ensure your content is well-optimized to perform well on the SERPs.

SEOWriting also shows content scores and helps you optimize your content based on the right set of relevant keywords, which both Ubersuggest and Ahrefs lack.

The platform stands out with features like auto internal linking, which connects your new content to existing pages, something both Ahrefs and Ubersuggest can identify as important but can't implement for you.

With its WordPress auto-posting, SEOWriting helps turn your keyword research from Ahrefs or Ubersuggest into published, optimized content much faster.

Final Thoughts

Choosing between Ahrefs and Ubersuggest comes down to your specific needs, budget, and SEO experience level. Ahrefs offers unmatched depth and accuracy but at a premium price. Ubersuggest provides budget-friendly access to essential SEO tools with a gentler learning curve.

For professional SEOs and businesses where search traffic drives significant revenue, Ahrefs' comprehensive data and advanced features justify the investment. For small businesses, beginners, and those with budget constraints, Ubersuggest offers exceptional value while covering the SEO basics you need to succeed.

After you've chosen your keyword research tool and identified your target keywords, check out SEOWriting to transform those insights into ready-to-publish, SEO-optimized content. Try it now for free!

FAQs

Is Ahrefs worth the higher price?

For professional SEOs and businesses where search traffic drives significant revenue, yes. The depth of data and additional features justify the cost. For casual users or small businesses with limited budgets, the extra features might not justify the price difference.

Is Ubersuggest enough for most keyword research needs?

For basic keyword research and smaller websites, Ubersuggest provides enough data to build a solid SEO strategy. For highly competitive niches, international SEO, or content sites needing extensive keyword analysis, Ahrefs offers more depth that serious SEO professionals might find necessary.

Can beginners use Ahrefs effectively?

Yes, but expect a steeper learning curve. Beginners will need to invest time in learning how to use the platform through Ahrefs' tutorials and documentation.

Does Ubersuggest provide accurate data?

Ubersuggest data is generally accurate enough for most SEO decisions, though its smaller database means less comprehensive coverage than Ahrefs, especially for backlinks and less common keywords.

Can I use both tools together?

Many SEO professionals use Ubersuggest for quick checks and initial research, then use Ahrefs for deeper analysis and monitoring. This combination gives you the best of both worlds if budget allows.

Prit Centrago Prit is an SEO Content Specialist and Copywriter. His work has helped SaaS brands across multiple industries reach more customers worldwide. When not involved in writing or planning content strategies, you'll find him reading books with a cup of coffee.