Replace / Ahrefs
Best free Ahrefs alternatives (open source, self-hosted) 2026
The best open-source alternative to Ahrefs is SerpBear, self-hosted on Railway. Keyword ranks you host. SerpBear is MIT — Semrush and Ahrefs without the backlink index as a product.
Estimated save $1,200 a year.
Open the stackStart on Railway
How Ahrefs compares
| Ahrefs | SerpBear | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Hosted subscription | Open-source or fair-code license; you pay the host |
| Hosting | Vendor cloud | Self-hosted on Railway or any VPS |
| Rough monthly cost | Public list price not verified this run | Hosting only — no SaaS seat meter in this repo |
- SerpBear
MIT search-engine position rank tracking you can self-host
FAQ
- What is the best free open-source Ahrefs alternative?
- The best open-source alternative to Ahrefs is SerpBear, self-hosted on Railway. Keyword ranks you host. SerpBear is MIT — Semrush and Ahrefs without the backlink index as a product.
- Is it free?
- The SerpBear licenses are open source or fair-code. You still pay hosting (Railway or any VPS) and any APIs the stack calls. There is no Ahrefs seat or task bill on this path.
- Can I migrate from Ahrefs?
- Yes. Start with the workflows or data you actually use, then cut over. The SerpBear stack page has the agent prompt and the cost table; most teams rebuild the slice that matters and leave old Ahrefs links until they expire.
- How do I deploy it?
- Open the SerpBear stack, copy the agent prompt, and deploy on Railway (one service, PORT, and a volume when the app needs disk). Placeholder: SerpBear + a database. Scraping search-engine result pages has ToS and IP consequences — read the project docs. Bind HTTP to 0.0.0.0:$PORT. No one-click template in this repo yet — Start on Railway. Pageviews stay on /stacks/swetrix-analytics.
- What does this replace?
- Semrush / Ahrefs. The published small-team estimate on this stack is $1,200 a year.
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