the honest Majestic alternative for backlinks.
most Majestic alternatives are the same subscription with a different logo. this page does the boring version instead: what Majestic's own free tier covers, where it stops, how the real Majestic competitors price up, and what each one is genuinely best at. then the pitch, which is narrow on purpose. if you want an alternative to Majestic for one job, finding the domains that link to your competitors and not to you, CrawlGraph runs it on Common Crawl's open hyperlink graph and the gap analysis returns your first 5 gaps for an email, with no account to create.
first 5 gaps for an email, no account · read the honest Majestic comparison
Majestic's free tier: what you get, where it stops
the phrase people type is usually "free majestic alternative", so start with the free part that already exists.
Majestic publishes its summary metrics openly, so Trust Flow and Citation Flow for a domain are a search away and a small public sample of the link profile comes with them. The list itself is subscription-only, and so is the historic index that is Majestic's actual selling point: the ability to ask what linked to a site years ago, not just today. There is no standing free tier that ends with a competitor's referring domains in a spreadsheet, which is the step most people are trying to reach.
over three years that is Majestic at roughly $1,800 vs $99 once. for the job most people open Majestic for - finding the competitor backlinks you don't have - you get the same gap.
where Majestic genuinely wins
- Trust Flow and Citation Flow, its well-known link metrics
- deep historic index going back years
- a backlinks-only focus, like us
if you live in those, Majestic earns its price. we say so.
where CrawlGraph wins
- $99 once, not a subscription - the same open Common Crawl link data
- free gap analysis: your first 5 gaps for an email, no card
- finds the contact email and drafts the outreach - closes the loop
- open methodology, plus an API and MCP server
who should switch, and who should stay on Majestic
Majestic and CrawlGraph are the only two backlinks-only tools in this comparison, so the difference states itself. Majestic sells depth and history on a crawl it owns. We sell the gap between two domains on an open one. If you need to prove what linked to a site in 2019, Majestic is the answer and there is no substitute. If you need to know who links to a competitor today and not to you, you are paying a historian for a headcount.
it is the same backlink data
Majestic draws its core index from the public web, the same place Common Crawl publishes its open hyperlink graph every quarter. we measured it: Majestic has 5,779 referring domains and a cg authority of 54 in the open graph (full method in our SEO-tools link study). for finding the domains linking to your competitors but not to you, that open graph is all you need - and it is what the free gap analysis runs on.
Majestic alternatives and competitors, priced
the shortlist people actually compare against Majestic, at list price for the entry plan, taken from each vendor's own pricing page. the strength column is where that tool genuinely beats the rest, including where it beats us.
| tool | price | strongest at |
|---|---|---|
| Ahrefs | $129/mo | the largest, freshest live backlink index (continuous re-crawl) |
| Semrush | $140/mo | an all-in-one suite (PPC, social, content, not just SEO) |
| Moz | $99/mo | Domain Authority, the metric the whole industry quotes |
| Serpstat | $69/mo | an all-in-one budget suite (rank tracking, audit, keywords) |
| SpyFu | $39/mo | PPC and AdWords competitor intelligence, its real specialty |
| SE Ranking | $103/mo | accurate daily rank tracking, its core strength |
| Ubersuggest | $29/mo | keyword research at a beginner price, the reason most people keep it |
| CrawlGraph | $99 once | competitor backlink gap analysis on open data, free to try for an email |
cheapest subscription in this table: SpyFu at $39/mo. our $99 is paid once, so it costs less than SpyFu after about 3 months.
priced closest to Majestic, and so the most likely swap: alternatives to SpyFu, Serpstat competitors, and tools like Ubersuggest. all eight are side by side on the seo tool price comparison.
alternative, competitor, or just similar? the four questions behind this search
people arrive here having typed one of four things, and they do not mean the same thing. answering them separately is more useful than pretending they are synonyms.
- “an alternative to Majestic”
- you already pay for Majestic and want the same job done for less. the answer is job by job rather than tool for tool. Majestic wins at Trust Flow and Citation Flow, its well-known link metrics, and if that is the reason you opened it, nothing on this page replaces it. the part that is genuinely replaceable is competitor link discovery, and that runs on open data for $99 once.
- “Majestic competitors”
- you want the market map before you commit to anything. that is the table above: Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz, Serpstat, SpyFu, SE Ranking, Ubersuggest, at entry-plan list price with the one thing each is genuinely strongest at, including where they beat us.
- “tools like Majestic”, “sites like Majestic”, “similar to Majestic”
- you want the same shape of product, not a cheaper Majestic. worth saying plainly: every tool in that table is a suite, and CrawlGraph is not one. if what you liked about Majestic was having rank tracking, audits, and keywords in a single login, a specialist is not similar to it and you should buy a suite. if you only ever opened the backlink module, the similarity you were looking for is one report, not the login around it.
- “better than Majestic”
- the only honest response is “at what?”. better across the board, at a lower price, does not exist, and a page that claims it is selling you something. better at one thing is real: for listing the domains that link to a competitor and not to you, the open Common Crawl graph finds the same gap a subscription would, then finds the contact address and drafts the outreach.
questions people actually ask
- Is there a free Majestic alternative?
- Partly, and it is worth being precise about which part. CrawlGraph's backlink gap analysis is free and needs an email rather than an account, and it returns your first 5 gaps; a free API key gives you 15 backlink lookups a month. The full list, exports, and unlimited API access are $99 once, not a subscription. None of it is a time-limited trial.
- What is the cheapest Majestic alternative?
- Of the tools compared on this page, SpyFu is the cheapest subscription at $39/mo. CrawlGraph is $99 paid once, so it costs less than SpyFu after about 3 months and never renews after that.
- Which Majestic competitors are worth comparing?
- The realistic shortlist is Ahrefs, Semrush, Moz, Serpstat, SpyFu, SE Ranking, Ubersuggest, and CrawlGraph. They are not interchangeable, so compare them on the job rather than on the feature count: the table on this page names the one thing each tool does better than the rest. For competitor backlink discovery specifically, the open Common Crawl hyperlink graph finds the same gap any of them would, and that is what CrawlGraph runs on.
- Is anything actually better than Majestic?
- Not across the board, and be suspicious of any alternatives page that claims so. Majestic beats us at Trust Flow and Citation Flow, its well-known link metrics. What beats Majestic is narrower: for the single job of listing the domains that link to a competitor and not to you, open data finds the same gap without a subscription, and CrawlGraph then finds the contact address and drafts the outreach email.
- Do these alternatives use the same backlink data as Majestic?
- Not identical data, and anyone claiming otherwise is selling. Majestic runs its own crawler. CrawlGraph reads Common Crawl's open hyperlink graph, 121.1M domains and 3.90B domain-level links as of the current release, republished every quarter. A live commercial index is fresher and deeper on brand-new links. For the job most people open Majestic for, finding the domains that link to a competitor but not to you, the open graph finds the same gap.
test the data before you switch anything
not ready to move off Majestic? don't. pull the same open graph yourself first and see whether the links you already know about show up. a free key is emailed to you, no card, no account to create.
see the gap before you pay anyone
run your domain against a competitor and read the list of sites linking to them and not to you. your first 5 gaps for an email, seconds.
first 5 gaps for an email · $99 once unlocks the full list, export, and API