ALTERNATIVE · CHECKED OCTOBER 6, 2026
These two tools overlap more than most pairs in this comparison. Both read headings, show structured data, run Core Web Vitals on the page, check for broken links, trace redirects, switch user agents and show Google results from another location. Ahrefs goes further in places: its redirect chains include JavaScript redirects, its headings go to H7, it ships on Firefox and Safari as well as Chrome, and if you already pay for Ahrefs, nothing free can show you their keyword and backlink metrics inline, so keep it installed regardless of what we do. Ours checks hreflang return tags and structured data field by field, neither of which their own pages describe. Its rendering check compares headings, links, images and JSON-LD as well as the titles and descriptions theirs names. And it adds a verdict to the readout: a 0–100 score, an A–F letter on the toolbar icon, and the issues it found, by name. Running both is a perfectly sensible setup.
Written by SEO Bandwagon, who make one of the two extensions on this page. We have tried to make that impossible to forget rather than easy to miss: Ahrefs SEO Toolbar's advantages are listed before ours, and every row in the table below is checkable against their own published pages.
This section comes first on purpose. Ahrefs SEO Toolbar is published by Ahrefs Pte. Ltd. and, as of October 6, 2026, its Chrome Web Store listing shows 400,000 users at 4.4 out of 5, from 556 ratings, last updated 15 September 2026. It runs on Chrome, Firefox and Safari. Cross-sourced: ahrefs.com/seo-toolbar says "Also available for Firefox and Safari"; the Firefox add-on is v3.2.13 with 4,897 users; the Safari build is a free Mac App Store title (id 6499265972), last updated 30 April 2024.
Capabilities only — nothing here rates how well either tool does its job. 0 rows go our way, 2 go theirs, and on 4 more Ahrefs SEO Toolbar's own pages do not say either way.
| CAPABILITY | SEO BANDWAGON | AHREFS SEO TOOLBAR |
|---|---|---|
| Score (0–100) in the popup, letter grade (A–F) on the toolbar iconNot claimed or ruled out by their store listing, ahrefs.com/seo-toolbar, help centre, Academy guide or App Store page, read 6 October 2026. None of those lists is closed: the store’s ends "and more". Their per-metric Web Vitals readouts are called "scores"; no surface mentions a score for the page. | Yes | Not stated |
| Lists the issues it finds by name, such as “Missing H1”Some tabs flag problems: the Social tab "will hint if one or more social tags are missing or empty", the Images tab filters "images with missing titles and alt texts", and the Outgoing links tab "checks for broken backlinks". No surface describes one list of the issues on a page. | Yes | Partial |
| Google SERP previewNot claimed or ruled out by their store listing, ahrefs.com/seo-toolbar, help centre, Academy guide or App Store page, read 6 October 2026. None of those lists is closed: the store’s ends "and more". Their Content tab shows title and description lengths "for better performance in SERPs". Not to be confused with their local search results simulator, which shows a SERP from another location. | Yes | Not stated |
| Heading structure outlineH1 through H7, one level deeper than most tools show, with a "Copy headings" button. | Yes | Yes |
| Structured data / schema viewTheir Structure data tab "displays the structured data available on a web page in JSON-LD format". JSON-LD is the only format their docs name. | Yes | Yes |
| Structured data checked for missing required fieldsTheir App Store page: "We’ve also added a quick way to validate structured data." Their Academy guide says it sends the page to "Google’s Rich Results tester or use the Schema markup validator"; no surface says the toolbar checks fields itself. | Yes | Partial |
| Core Web Vitals, measured in your browser"You can run Web vitals on the page to check its LCP, FID, CLS, and INP scores." Ahrefs does not state whether those numbers are measured in your browser or pulled from PageSpeed Insights; the Chrome listing calls it "performance data for page speed insights". | Yes | Yes |
| Readability scoringNot claimed or ruled out by their store listing, ahrefs.com/seo-toolbar, help centre, Academy guide or App Store page, read 6 October 2026. None of those lists is closed: the store’s ends "and more". Their Content tab reports word count. | Yes | Not stated |
| Broken link check"Clicking the ‘Check status’ button will check the page for broken links and redirects." Ours groups each link by its HTTP status. | Yes | Yes |
| Redirect chain, hop by hop"See full redirect chains, including JavaScript", and "check HTTP response headers for every URL in a redirect". | Yes | Yes |
| Hreflang return-tag checkNot claimed or ruled out by their store listing, ahrefs.com/seo-toolbar, help centre, Academy guide or App Store page, read 6 October 2026. None of those lists is closed: the store’s ends "and more". Their Indexability tab lists "hreflang links"; no surface says it checks that the other page links back. | Yes | Not stated |
| Server HTML compared with the rendered pageFor two fields, in their words: "Compare raw vs. rendered HTML to spot differences in titles and meta descriptions on JS-powered sites." Ours also compares the canonical, robots, heading, link and image counts, JSON-LD blocks, word count and hreflang. | Yes | Partial |
| User-agent switcher"Simulate browsers, devices, operating systems or crawlers—including Googlebot." | Yes | Yes |
| People Also Ask questions, pulled from Google resultsTheir Academy guide: the "People also ask tab lets you pull more relevant questions". | Yes | Yes |
| Google results as searched from another locationFree: a "Local search results simulator", and "Switch country, language, and Google domain in one click." | Yes | Yes |
| Free, no sign-in to analyzeThe toolbar is free and the on-page reports, redirect tracer, outgoing links, SERP positions and local simulator are in the free set. Two gates sit above it: Domain Rating and URL Rating need a free Ahrefs account ("Sign in for free to access Domain Rating and URL Rating for any site"), and keyword counts, traffic estimates, referring domains, search volume and keyword difficulty need a paid subscription ("Ahrefs subscription is required for access to Ahrefs metrics"). | Yes | Partial |
| Firefox buildTheirs, not ours. Their Firefox add-on is v3.2.13 with 4,897 users; a Safari build ships too. Our Firefox port is on the roadmap and is not shipped. | No | Yes |
| A large user base on the Chrome Web StoreThey show 400,000 users and 556 ratings. Ours showed 6 users and one rating on 6 October 2026. | No | Yes |
Every row above was checked on October 6, 2026 against the Ahrefs SEO Toolbar’s own Chrome Web Store listing, ahrefs.com/seo-toolbar, the Ahrefs help centre’s toolbar article and Academy guide, its Mac App Store page and its Firefox add-on page, and against our own extension, version 1.7.1, in the same sitting. User counts and ratings are whatever the Web Store displayed that day.
“Not stated” means exactly that: Ahrefs SEO Toolbar's own pages neither claim the capability nor rule it out, and we will not turn that silence into a “No”.
Products change. A comparison page that is right on the day it ships and never re-checked becomes a false claim about someone else's software, so this one carries its date in the open and gets re-verified before every publish rather than left to age.
If something here is wrong or out of date, tell us and we will fix it.
SRC: Ahrefs SEO Toolbar on the Chrome Web Store · their landing page · checked October 6, 2026