OpenSEO
The modern, open source SEO platform
About OpenSEO
SEO tooling is the most overpriced category in marketing software, where a single seat routinely costs more per month than a small team spends on hosting. OpenSEO is the direct response: the core Ahrefs and Semrush workflows, namely keyword research, rank tracking, backlink analysis, site audits and competitor overview, delivered as an MIT licensed application you can self host, billed by actual usage rather than a flat seat fee. Self hosting is free if you bring your own DataForSEO API key, and the hosted version adds a modest markup on top of those requests.
The part that makes it interesting to developers rather than only to marketers is the MCP server. It exposes the entire toolset to Claude Code, Cursor, ChatGPT and other agents, so SEO data becomes callable in the middle of a coding or writing session rather than something you leave your editor to go look up. Agent Skills package reusable workflows that walk an agent through an SEO task end to end. Alongside the classic metrics sit newer surfaces built for how search is actually changing: AI Visibility tracks how a site shows up in AI generated answers, and Prompt Explorer investigates which prompts surface it. The project was created in February 2026 and reached over 12,000 GitHub stars within six months.
Choose your deployment first, because that decision sets the cost. Self host with Docker locally or on Cloudflare for a team, supplying your own DataForSEO API key, and the software itself costs nothing. Or take the hosted plan, which bundles usage credits and adds a markup on DataForSEO requests in exchange for not operating anything. From there the workflows are the familiar ones: research keywords and save them into lists, run a domain overview against a competitor, inspect a backlink profile, track rankings over time, and audit a site for technical problems. AI Visibility and Prompt Explorer cover the newer question of how the site appears inside AI generated answers rather than only in the classic result list. Connect the MCP server to a coding agent and the same data becomes available inside Claude Code or Cursor, with Agent Skills providing prepackaged workflows so the agent follows a sensible sequence instead of improvising. Usage credits do not expire and can be topped up at any time.
- •Keyword Research - Research keywords and organise them into saved lists
- •Domain Overview - Competitor and site level analysis in one view
- •Backlinks Inspector - Analyse a backlink profile without an enterprise seat
- •Rank Tracking - Monitor search positions over time
- •Site Audit - Surface technical SEO problems across a site
- •AI Visibility - Track how a site surfaces inside AI generated answers, not just classic results
- •Prompt Explorer - Investigate which prompts cause a site to appear
- •MCP Server - Exposes the full toolset to Claude Code, Cursor and ChatGPT, with Agent Skills for repeatable workflows
- •Self Hosting - Docker locally or Cloudflare for teams, free with your own DataForSEO key
Developers, indie hackers and small marketing teams who need real SEO data but cannot justify an enterprise seat, and who are comfortable supplying an API key to avoid a markup. It suits anyone already working inside a coding agent, because the MCP server removes the context switch between writing and checking. Agencies can self host and run it across client sites without multiplying seat costs. Two caveats matter. It is a thin margin on top of DataForSEO, so it owns no proprietary index and its data quality, coverage and cost floor are all set by a supplier it does not control, which also makes it trivially forkable. And at under six months old with a substantial open issue count, it is early enough that the project could stall.
