4SEO vs Semrush (2026): which should you pick?

Pick 4SEO if

• Fits if your Joomla site wants one extension instead of several SEO add-ons
• Works for site owners who plan content from Search Console data

Look elsewhere if

• Skip it if your site isn't on Joomla, as that's all it runs on
• Not for you if you want to try it first, since there's no free edition or stated trial
• Pricey if you run more than 3 sites, as unlimited sites need PRO at $249 a year
• Watch out: it keeps working after a year, but downloads and helpdesk access stop until you renew

Pick Semrush if

• Fits if you want research, rank tracking and audits in one account and can pay $117.33 a month or more
• Works for agencies that need keyword data for many countries and compare client sites with competitors

Look elsewhere if

• Pricey if you're one person with one site, at $117.33 a month even yearly, and the trial checks your card with a small charge
• Tight if your team is more than just you, since every extra user is from $45 a month
• Skip it if AI answer tracking is the point, as the SEO plan leaves it out and Starter is $165.17 a month
• Watch out: the API and share of voice need the custom-priced Advanced plan, and scheduled PDF reports are $10 to $20 a month extra
• Watch out: local, content, social and ad tools are separate toolkits with their own prices, and the free plan allows 10 reports a day

4SEO

• Runs only on Joomla (versions 3, 4, 5 and 6).
• The $95 plan covers support and updates for up to 3 sites; more sites need 4SEO PRO at $249 a year.
• Payments do not renew automatically: the software keeps working after a year, but downloads and helpdesk access stop until you renew.
• There is no free edition or stated trial; Weeblr's free tools are separate products such as the SEOInfo browser extension.

Semrush

• Each plan includes one user; extra users start at $45 a month each, priced by plan level.
• Scheduled PDF reports are an add-on at $10 a month, or $20 with white-labeling; Advanced includes reporting.
• API access and share of voice come only with the custom-priced Advanced plan.
• Local, content, social, advertising, AI PR and traffic tools are separate toolkits with their own prices.

4SEO

Background site crawl

Crawls the site like a search engine to find duplicate URLs, add canonical links, flag duplicate titles and descriptions, and list broken links and PHP errors.

Search Console insights

Pulls keywords and pages from Google Search Console into keyword and page opportunity lists, a cannibalization report and a position tracker covering up to 16 months.

Titles and descriptions

Set the title, description and robots tags of any page in one place, with a live Google results preview, from the admin or from the front end.

Structured data and llms.txt

Adds structured data to Joomla articles automatically and to other content through rules, writes Open Graph and Twitter Card tags, and can publish Markdown pages listed in llms.txt.

Real Core Web Vitals

Measures Core Web Vitals from actual visitors rather than a lab test, and shows which pages fail.

Sitemaps, redirects and error pages

Builds an XML sitemap of canonical pages and submits it to Google and Bing, sends changes to IndexNow, and handles wildcard redirects and custom error pages.

Semrush

Keyword research

Look up search volume, difficulty and intent from a database Semrush puts at 29 billion keywords across 142 country databases.

Competitor and backlink analysis

See which keywords and pages bring a rival site its traffic, and inspect any domain's backlink profile.

Position Tracking

Track daily rankings for 500 to 5,000+ keywords depending on the plan; Pro+ adds tracking by location and device.

Site Audit

Crawl your sites for technical SEO problems. From the Starter plan the audit also checks how ready a site is for AI search.

AI visibility tracking

Starter and above track daily whether set prompts in AI chat tools mention your brand, with sentiment monitoring. The SEO plan has none of this.

MCP and API access

Starter and above can query Semrush data from AI assistants through MCP; the API itself comes with the Advanced plan.

4SEO

• 4SEO$95

  per year for up to 3 sites

  1 year of support and updates for up to 3 sites, on Joomla 3 to 6. GPL license with unlimited installations; payments do not recur.

• 4SEO PRO$249

  per year for unlimited sites

  The same extension with 1 year of support and updates for any number of sites; aimed at agencies.

Semrush

• Free$0

  1 project, 10 analytics reports a day and 10 tracked keywords, for trying the tools.

• SEO$117.33

  per month, billed annually ($139 billed monthly)

  1 user, 5 websites, 500 keywords tracked daily, basic keyword and competitor research, and Site Audit. No AI search tracking.

• Starter$165.17

  per month, billed annually ($199 billed monthly)

  5 websites and 500 keywords, full keyword research tools, MCP access, 50 AI prompts tracked daily and 300 AI visibility reports a day.

• Pro+$248.17

  per month, billed annually ($299 billed monthly)

  15 websites, 1,500 keywords, historical data, content optimization, cannibalization checks, multi-location tracking and 100 AI prompts.

• AdvancedCustom

  40+ websites, 5,000+ keywords, share of voice, API access, team users, reporting and unlimited AI prompts. Sold after a demo.

4SEO

• Other savings

  Discount for renewing before a subscription ends

  Weeblr's FAQ says customers who renew before their subscription expires get a discount; it does not state the amount.

Semrush

• Annual discount

  Save up to 17% with annual billing

  Semrush's pricing page lists annual billing at up to 17% less: Starter is $165.17 a month billed annually instead of $199 billed monthly.