Keyword, rank and backlink data billed per DataForSEO call
OpenSEO is an MIT-licensed SEO tool covering keyword research, rank tracking, competitor analysis, backlinks, site audits and visibility in AI answers. The data comes from the DataForSEO API, called with your own key and billed per request, so a self-hosted instance has no subscription attached. People use the web interface; AI agents reach the same data through an MCP server.
Agent access over MCP and AI answer tracking
- MCP server at
/mcp: Claude, ChatGPT, Codex and Cursor sign in with an OpenSEO account or an API key. The README says the ChatGPT setup works on free plans as well as paid ones. - Agent skills in the repository:
seo-audit,keyword-clustering,link-prospectingandlocal-seowalk an agent through an SEO task using the MCP tools. - AI answer tracking: saved questions are sent to ChatGPT and Gemini, plus Google AI Overviews, Claude or Perplexity if selected. Each answer is checked for a brand mention, a link to the site and competitor appearances.
- Search Console and Google Analytics are optional; a self-hosted instance links them through its own Google OAuth app. On the hosted plan, Search Console data does not count against the usage credit.
- Two self-hosting routes: Docker Compose with a prebuilt image, which can also be pasted into Coolify, Portainer or Dokploy, or a one-command deploy to your own Cloudflare account that fits the free plan.
DataForSEO's $50 minimum, public-only crawls, a 0.1 release line
Nothing shows up in OpenSEO without a DataForSEO account. The repository docs describe DataForSEO as a pay-as-you-go service unaffiliated with the project, with $1 of free credit for new accounts and a $50 minimum top-up. The SAM chat assistant also needs an OpenRouter key.
Prompt research is limited to US English. According to the AI Visibility docs, its questions come mostly from Google's "People also ask" data via DataForSEO rather than from prompts people typed into ChatGPT.
The README calls OpenSEO an open source alternative to Semrush and Ahrefs for anyone who finds those too expensive or bloated. When self-hosting, costs are whatever the providers charge, with no OpenSEO markup. The hosted version costs $10 a month with $10 of usage included, and the README explains that it makes its money by adding 28% to every request sent to DataForSEO.
Docker installs need at least 4 GiB of memory. OpenSEO is written for Cloudflare Workers and runs under Docker on celld, an open source runtime for Workers code. Crawls only reach public addresses on ports 80 and 443, which rules out auditing a staging site on a private network.
The instance never sends email. Invitations are links you pass on yourself, and forgotten passwords are reset from a terminal. Registration closes as soon as the first visitor creates the admin account, and every member then works in one shared workspace.
Anonymous telemetry is on by default for self-hosted installs. It reports aggregate counts with no URLs, keywords or prompts, and OPENSEO_TELEMETRY_DISABLED=1 switches it off.
v0.1.19 came out on 26 October 2026, the tenth release in a month and the 47th since v0.0.2 on 16 March; the repository says nothing about maturity. Rolling back to an older image does not undo database migrations, which is why the Docker guide puts a backup before every update.