Free alternative

Free alternative to Semrush

Semrush costs €134 a month. OpenSEO does the same job for free, in open source: you install it on your machine or a small server, and you stop paying.

Public entry price, taken from Semrush’s website (semrush.com). Over a year, that is €1608 that stays in your pocket.

How much does Semrush cost in 2026?

Semrush’s public plans, checked on 7 October 2026 on fr.semrush.com. Prices rounded up to the next euro, except those ending in .99.

  • Free

    €0

    10 queries a day in reports, 1 website and 10 tracked keywords.

  • SEO

    €134 a month

    5 websites and 500 keywords tracked daily. €113 a month billed yearly.

  • Starter

    €190 a month

    The SEO plan, plus tracking of your visibility in AI answers. €159 a month billed yearly.

  • Pro+

    €286 a month

    15 websites and 1,500 tracked keywords, historical data. €238 a month billed yearly.

  • Advanced

    €526 a month

    40 websites, 5,000 keywords and API access. €436.99 a month billed yearly.

  • Enterprise

    Custom quote

    Unlimited projects and custom limits.

Prices in euros. Paying yearly saves about 16%. See the official pricing page ↗

What replaces Semrush

The main alternative

OpenSEO

🟡 Intermediate⏱️ ~20 min to installSave €134/mo

OpenSEO is an open source SEO tool that replaces Semrush and Ahrefs. You do keyword research (volume, difficulty, intent), analyse a competitor and its backlinks, track your rankings and run a technical audit of your site. It also measures your brand's visibility in ChatGPT style answers, and through MCP you can query it from Claude or Cursor. If you would rather host nothing, the hosted version costs around €9 a month, credits included. The thing to understand: the software is free, but the data comes from DataForSEO, which you pay as you go with your own key (about 5 cents per keyword research, 8 cents per domain overview, a minimum top up of about €45). For a small site, that is a few euros a month.

Loucash’s verdict on OpenSEO

7/10

If you pay Semrush or Ahrefs for one or two sites, OpenSEO covers the essentials: keywords, backlinks, rankings, audit, plus AI visibility and an MCP server to do your SEO from Claude. The software is truly free and open source, and it even runs on Cloudflare's free plan. What I like: the project's pace (19,000 stars in under seven months, a release every couple of weeks), pay per request rather than a subscription, and the AI angle nobody else offers in open source. What may bite: it is not free end to end. The data comes from DataForSEO, you need an account and a minimum top up of 50 dollars (around €45), then every request is deducted (a few cents). For a small site that is a few euros a month, but if you fire a thousand requests a day, do the maths. The project is young (version 0.1), the Docker version runs without a password and must never be exposed as is, and the AI features need an extra OpenRouter key.

Who it is for: You do SEO for one or two sites, you pay Semrush or Ahrefs for a few searches a week, and you want your data at home. If you run thousands of requests a day, compare the pay as you go cost first.

OpenSEO versus Semrush: the match

  • Price

    OpenSEO

    €0 for the tool, data pay as you go (a few cents per request)

    Semrush

    €134/month, €113 yearly

  • Tracked keywords

    OpenSEO

    As many as you want, you pay per request

    Semrush

    500 on the SEO plan

  • Keyword research

    OpenSEO

    Volume, difficulty, intent, SERP

    Semrush

    Yes, proprietary database

The prompt that installs OpenSEO

Paste this prompt into Claude: it checks the repository, asks you its questions and installs the tool step by step.

Je veux installer OpenSEO (outil SEO open source, dépôt GitHub every-app/open-seo, site openseo.so) à la place de Semrush ou Ahrefs. Demande-moi d'abord si je veux l'essayer sur ma machine avec Docker (docs/SELF_HOSTING_DOCKER.md du dépôt) ou l'héberger sur Cloudflare avec le plan gratuit (docs/SELF_HOSTING_CLOUDFLARE.md), puis suis la doc officielle pas à pas. Guide-moi pour créer un compte DataForSEO et une clé d'API (docs/DATAFORSEO_API_KEY.md), en me prévenant que les données se paient à l'usage avec un dépôt minimum de 50 dollars, et mets la clé dans le fichier .env. En mode Docker, rappelle-moi que l'application tourne sans authentification et ne doit pas être exposée sur internet sans protection. Si je veux les fonctions IA, propose-moi d'ajouter une clé OpenRouter. Lance l'outil, ouvre-le dans mon navigateur, et fais-moi faire une première recherche de mots-clés sur mon domaine pour vérifier que les données arrivent. Explique-moi comment suivre ma consommation chez DataForSEO et comment mettre OpenSEO à jour.

Review the GitHub repository and check whether it is safe to install given my machine and my infrastructure. Ask me as many questions as possible, using widgets, to clarify my request and be as precise as you can.

Frequently asked questions

How much does Semrush cost?
Free: €0; SEO: €134 a month; Starter: €190 a month; Pro+: €286 a month; Advanced: €526 a month; Enterprise: Custom quote. Prices checked on 7 October 2026 on fr.semrush.com.
Is Semrush free?
Partly, with limits. 10 queries a day in reports, 1 website and 10 tracked keywords. Beyond that, the SEO plan costs €134 a month. OpenSEO does the same thing for free, in open source.
Is OpenSEO really free?
Yes. OpenSEO is open source: the code is public and installing it costs nothing. At most you pay for hosting if you put it on a server, often a few euros a month. Semrush, on the other hand, costs €134 a month. One nuance for OpenSEO: the software is free, but the SEO data comes from DataForSEO and is paid as you go, a few cents per request, with a starting top up of 50 dollars (around €45). No subscription, but not zero either.
Do I need to code to install OpenSEO?
No. The level is intermediate and the install takes about 20 minutes with the prompt from the page: Claude does the work, you answer its questions.
How is it different from Semrush?
OpenSEO does most of what Semrush does, without a subscription, and your data stays with you. The point by point comparison is on the page.
Do I own my data?
Yes. With an open source tool installed on your side, your files stay on your machine or your server. Nobody can close your account or change the price.

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