I got tired of watching agency budgets disappear into Ahrefs and Semrush subscriptions every month. $200, $400, sometimes close to $1000/month for data that a solo marketer or small team uses maybe 10% of. So I built the alternative I actually wanted.
SEODesktop is a native desktop app for Windows and macOS that plugs directly into DataForSEO's API. Same data class as the big players. No proprietary index markup. No seat fees. No "contact sales for enterprise pricing." You bring your own DataForSEO API key, pay only for the queries you run, and the app costs €29/year flat for Pro. That's it.
What you get:
Full SERP analysis across Google, Bing, YouTube, Amazon, and App Store
Keyword research with volume, difficulty, trends, and intent classification
Backlink explorer with referring domains, anchor text, spam scores, and new vs. lost trends
On-demand Lighthouse site audits (not on a schedule, when you actually want them)
Competitor keyword gap analysis across up to three domains
LLM mention tracking to see how ChatGPT, Claude, and Perplexity cite your brand
100+ DataForSEO endpoints surfaced as clean tables, charts, and CSV exports, no JSON, no endpoint paths, no developer babysitting required
Built-in AI analysis via Claude, GPT-4o, or a fully local Ollama model. Bring your own key or run it entirely offline.
The free tier unlocks every single feature with no time limit. The only caps are on result count and batch size, which Pro removes. No dark patterns, no trial expiry, no credit card required to start.
This is a one-person project, built after hours and on weekends out of a small town in Baden-Württemberg. The goal was simple: make DataForSEO's incredible raw data accessible to marketers and SEOs who shouldn't need to read API docs just to check a backlink profile. If you've been looking for a reason to finally ditch your Ahrefs subscription, this is probably it.
Download for free, test the hell out of it, then support me 👍
