OpenSEOOpen-source, self-hostable alternative to Semrush and Ahrefs that feeds real DataForSEO keyword, backlink, and rank data to your AI agent through an MCP server and nine prebuilt SEO skills. Hosted from $10 a month or free on your own Cloudflare.
Repo
OpenSEO
Open-source, self-hostable alternative to Semrush and Ahrefs that feeds real DataForSEO keyword, backlink, and rank data to your AI agent through an MCP server and nine prebuilt SEO skills. Hosted from $10 a month or free on your own Cloudflare.
The first open-source Semrush and Ahrefs alternative that is actually MIT and actually usable, and its real trick is an MCP server plus nine agent skills that let Claude Code, Cursor, or Codex pull live keyword, backlink, and rank data instead of guessing. The honest catch: the data comes from DataForSEO, which you pay for, its depth trails Ahrefs, and at v0.1.x this is a young project carried mostly by one maintainer.
Great for
Indie founders, freelancers, and lean marketing teams priced out of $100-plus a month Semrush or Ahrefs who want real SEO data their agent can query, at $10 a month hosted or a self-hosted Cloudflare deploy on the free plan.
The catch
The data layer is DataForSEO, so you bring a paid key when self-hosting or pay the hosted markup, and practitioners find its keyword and backlink depth thinner than Ahrefs. It is v0.1.x young, and one author has written 449 of roughly 480 commits.
Bottom line
Alive and shipping weekly, backed by the Every App org, not a lone script, and genuinely MIT. The best value in agent-native SEO today, as long as you treat the volumes as directional and keep expectations at barebone but improving fast.
InstallHosted at openseo.so, or self-host via Docker or Cloudflare (works on the free plan); connect agents with the hosted MCP at app.openseo.so/mcp, install the Claude Code / Cursor / Codex plugin, or npx skills add every-app/open-seo
LicenseMIT (permissive, fork and modify freely)
LanguageTypeScript
Maintained byEvery App (openseo.so), led by Ben Senescu; 18 contributors but one dominant author
Harnesses supportedClaude Code, Cursor, Codex, OpenClaw, Hermes, and ChatGPT via the MCP server, plus nine prebuilt agent skills
Watch out forNeeds a paid DataForSEO key when self-hosting (or $10/mo hosted plus usage); young v0.1.x; data depth trails Ahrefs
Keyword research (volume + related)Real DataForSEO data, not LLM guesses
Competitor / domain researchWhat a domain ranks for, plus content gaps
Backlink analysisAdded after the first launch
Rank tracking (organic + Google Maps)Yes
Site audit + LighthouseYes
AI-search visibility explorerSee how a brand shows up in LLM answers
MCP server for AI agentsClaude Code, Cursor, Codex, OpenClaw, Hermes, ChatGPT
Prebuilt agent skillsNine guided SEO workflows in the plugin
Google Search Console / AnalyticsConnected but basic; analysts still use BigQuery
Self-host (Docker / Cloudflare)Cloudflare recommended for teams; Docker best for testing
Own keyword / backlink indexRides DataForSEO; bring your own paid key when self-hosting
Fixed content-brief generatorBy design, the agent composes briefs from the MCP tools
What it does
- Runs the core SEO workflows on real DataForSEO data: keyword research with search volume and related terms, competitor and domain research, backlinks, rank tracking, and site audits
- Exposes an MCP server so agents like Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, OpenClaw, and Hermes can query your keyword, SERP, competitor, and backlink data directly inside a chat
- Ships nine agent skills (keyword research, keyword clustering, competitor analysis, competitive landscape, link prospecting, local SEO, SEO audit, SEO coach, SEO project setup) that guide the agent through complete workflows
- Tracks organic and Google Maps rankings over time, and reads first-party Google Search Console and Analytics signals so an agent can see how its changes moved performance
- Audits a site for SEO performance with Lighthouse scans, and explores AI-search visibility so you can see how a brand shows up in LLM answers
- Self-hosts two ways: a Docker image for local testing, or an internet-facing Cloudflare deploy that runs on the free plan for a team
- Lets you fork the whole app and build your own SEO tool or custom skills on top, since it is MIT, not source-available
What it can’t do
- Match the raw data depth of Ahrefs or Semrush; it rides the DataForSEO index, and practitioners running both find DataForSEO surfaces fewer topics and backlinks on large sites
- Give you free data; you bring a paid DataForSEO key when self-hosting, or pay the hosted plan whose price includes a 28 percent markup on every DataForSEO request
- Run itself hands-off if you self-host internet-facing; the recommended Cloudflare path is real setup, and the team says Docker on Railway, Coolify, or Dokploy is not smooth yet
- Claim maturity; it is v0.1.x, backlinks and rank tracking landed after the first launch, and the roadmap is still filling in
- Replace a full analytics stack; the Google Search Console integration is basic, and heavy analysts still reach for BigQuery for the deep work
- Be trusted blind by an agent; the MCP hands over DataForSEO volumes as if they were ground truth, so a stale or thin number can steer an agent's plan unless you sanity-check it
Pros & cons
Pros
- Genuinely MIT and open, so you can fork, self-host, and modify the whole app, unlike source-available tools that only look open
- Pay-as-you-go economics: $10 a month hosted or bring your own DataForSEO key, against $100-plus a month for Semrush or Ahrefs
- Best-in-class agent story, with an MCP server and nine skills that work across Claude Code, Cursor, Codex, OpenClaw, Hermes, and ChatGPT
- Real DataForSEO numbers behind the agent, so recommendations are grounded in your site instead of an LLM guessing keyword volumes
- Clean, focused UI built around single workflows, a relief after the bloated legacy suites
- Alive and credible: roughly weekly releases, 13.9k stars in about six months, and an org (Every App) behind it, so the bus factor beats a one-off script
Cons
- Data depth trails the incumbents; the honest practitioner critique is that DataForSEO finds fewer topics and links than Semrush on serious projects
- Young and thin on bus factor; it is v0.1.x and one maintainer (Ben Senescu) has written the large majority of commits
- Costs stack up: the hosted plan adds 28 percent to DataForSEO calls, and self-hosting means buying DataForSEO credits in $50 increments plus running the infra
- Google Search Console and Analytics integrations are basic, so power users still lean on their own analytics pipeline
- Internet-facing self-hosting is real work; Cloudflare is the recommended path and the other Docker hosts are still rough
- It is open source (MIT) and the skills are markdown workflows, but installing the plugin or skills and connecting the MCP runs in your agent and sends site data to the hosted endpoint, so review the repo before you connect it
1 positive3 mixed
What the community says
I've tested OpenSEO recently, the cheaper alternative to goliaths like Semrush and Ahrefs. My honest and cold takeaways: I don't see much incentive in paying for Semrush or Ahrefs in 2026 apart from branding, the UI is slick and minimal where the other two are confusing, and the LLM support is very good, which is what many legacy tools need. Still, it is a barebone alternative for the majority who use Semrush or Ahrefs. The room of improvement is huge and the underlying idea can be the start of something superior to the mainstream tools.
Glad someone finally built this. A lot of small teams give up on SEO before they start, because the tools cost $100 a month before you've written a single post. So the pricing is what caught my eye. The MCP angle is interesting too, because agents will build a whole strategy on bad keyword data and sound completely confident about it.
One watch-out with DataForSEO behind MCP: the agent will treat those volumes as ground truth, so stamping an as-of date on each metric keeps it from acting on a stale number. I'd also resist baking a fixed brief format into the tool, because blogs, landing pages, and comparison pages each want a different scaffold.
The self-host option is the part I find most interesting: if I run it on my own Cloudflare or Docker, what happens to the data layer? That's usually where open source SEO tools quietly stop being self-sufficient. The index is the moat, not the code.
10 sourcesWhere this page’s facts came from. Open the receipts.
- 1GitHub repo (every-app/open-seo)
- 2GitHub API, repo metadata (stars, license, language, dates, contributors)
- 3OpenSEO README (workflows, MCP, agent skills, self-hosting, DataForSEO, costs)
- 4OpenSEO homepage and pricing
- 5OpenSEO MCP documentation
- 6Cursor plugin README (nine skills, hosted MCP, OAuth connect)
- 7Product Hunt launch (ranked #1 of the day, July 19 2026) and maker Q&A
- 8Marco Giordano, hands-on OpenSEO review on LinkedIn
- 9Show HN: Open-source Semrush alternative (by the maintainer)
- 10Reddit r/selfhosted, maintainer's launch post and feature list
Watch it work
Real tutorials and reviews from YouTube, not ours.