8 Free Ahrefs Alternatives in 2026

1. Google Search Console — Free forever, and it's Google's own data

Search Console is the only source of truth for how Google actually sees your site. The Links report shows top linking sites, top linked pages and anchor text, straight from Google's index.

It also covers queries, impressions, clicks and average position for your own pages, plus indexing and Core Web Vitals reporting. No credit card, no row caps worth worrying about for a small site.

The limit is obvious: it only works for domains you can verify. It tells you nothing about your competitors.

Best for: Everyone. This is step one regardless of what else you use.

Skip it if: You need competitor data — it has none.

2. Ahrefs Webmaster Tools — Ahrefs' own index, free for your own site

AWT is Ahrefs' free tier in everything but name. Verify a site you own and you get Site Audit crawls and Site Explorer backlink data for that domain, powered by the same index as the paid product.

For 'what does my backlink profile look like', this is as good as free gets. Competitor lookups stay behind the paywall.

Best for: Auditing your own backlink profile with real Ahrefs data.

Skip it if: Competitor research is the whole reason you're here.

3. Ubersuggest — A few free lookups a day

Ubersuggest allows a small number of free searches per day, covering keyword ideas, domain overview and a backlink sample. That daily allowance is enough for spot checks and quick competitor sanity checks.

Data depth is well below Ahrefs and the upsell is constant, but for a handful of queries a day it costs nothing.

Best for: Quick daily spot checks on keywords and competitors.

Skip it if: You need volume, exports or consistent data.

4. Seobility — Best free technical crawler

Seobility's free plan crawls a capped number of pages on one project and reports technical issues — broken links, meta problems, structure, indexability — plus a basic backlink checker.

It's the closest free stand-in for Ahrefs' Site Audit module for a small site.

Best for: Free technical audits of a small site.

Skip it if: Large sites or serious link research.

5. Semrush (free tier) — A handful of full-fat competitor queries

Semrush's free account allows a limited number of requests per day across Domain Overview, Keyword Overview and Backlink Analytics, with truncated result rows.

Because the underlying data is the paid product's, those few queries a day are higher quality than most free tools' unlimited ones. Use them on your most important competitor, not on browsing.

Best for: Occasional high-quality competitor lookups.

Skip it if: Anything that needs more than a few queries a day.

6. Moz free tools — Domain Authority checks and MozBar

Moz offers limited free Link Explorer and Keyword Explorer queries with a free account, plus the MozBar extension that shows Domain Authority and Page Authority as you browse the SERPs.

MozBar is the practical part: it turns any Google results page into a rough authority comparison without opening a tool.

Best for: Eyeballing authority while researching in the SERPs.

Skip it if: You need exportable, complete link lists.

7. Sitechecker — Free one-off audit reports

Sitechecker's free checks cover on-page SEO, broken links and site health for a single URL or a small crawl, with a readable report you can act on immediately.

It's a one-off diagnostic rather than an ongoing tool, which is exactly what you want when you're deciding whether a technical problem exists at all.

Best for: A quick, readable health check on one site.

Skip it if: Ongoing monitoring or backlink research.

8. Backlinkforme — Free directory plus a link gap and audit dashboard

Backlinkforme is the tool you're reading about right now, so treat this entry as what it is: our own pitch, judged on the same terms as everything else on the page.

It's built around two things the big suites bury. First, a curated directory of free and foundational backlink opportunities — profile sites, directories, Web 2.0 platforms and guest post targets — that you can filter and save to a personal list. Second, a dashboard that runs a backlink audit of your own domain and a competitor link gap analysis, ranking the opportunities it finds from easiest to hardest to win.

The backlink data behind those reports comes from DataForSEO, the same kind of index the paid suites license, so referring domains and authority scores are real numbers rather than estimates we invented. Every account gets a free audit and a free gap analysis; premium unlocks a monthly quota plus CSV export.

What it is not: a keyword research suite, a rank tracker or a site auditor. If those are what you're replacing, pair it with one of the tools above.

Best for: Anyone whose actual job to be done is 'find links I can realistically get', not 'run a full SEO suite'.

Skip it if: You need keyword research, rank tracking and technical audits in the same subscription.