10 Best Free BuzzSumo Alternatives in 2026

BuzzSumo is a popular platform among digital marketers. It can help you generate content ideas, get insights on content performance, and identify influencers on social media.

As a result, the platform is used for competitor intelligence, influencer marketing, content strategy, and digital PR, among others. You can perform research with BuzzSumo using a keyword or by entering a domain name.

While many attest to BuzzSumo’s usefulness, others complain that the platform is somewhat expensive to use. For emphasis, BuzzSumo allows just 10 free searches per month, and the premium plans start at $99 per month.

If you’re among the latter, here are the 10 best free BuzzSumo alternatives you can go for.

Best Free BuzzSumo Alternatives

1. SEMRush

SEMrush is a popular digital marketing tool that offers a comprehensive suite of features for SEO, content marketing, competitive research, and social media. It is often used as an alternative to BuzzSumo due to its extensive capabilities and competitive pricing.

Key Features and Selling Points:

SEMrush’s key features include:

• Competitive keyword analysis with the Keyword Magic Tool
• Robust content marketing suggestions and analysis
• Daily rank tracking
• Ability to discover top keywords and search phrases for your website, blog, or online marketing campaigns.

Pricing and Plans

SEMrush does offer a free account option with limited access to its tools and data. With a free Semrush account, you can perform keyword research, analyze competitors, track keyword rankings, and more.

.Additionally, SEMrush provides a 7-day free trial of either the Pro or Guru accounts, which gives you full access to all the features that paid users enjoy. To sign up for the free trial, you will need to provide your card details, but you can cancel your subscription before the trial expires to avoid being charged.

After the 7-day trial period, if you do not cancel, you will be automatically moved to the paid plan you have chosen. 

The starting price for SEMrush’s paid plans is $129.95 per month.

Features and Functionality

SEMrush provides a more extensive suite of tools compared to BuzzSumo, making it an ideal choice for those seeking a well-rounded marketing solution. It helps you find top keywords and search phrases for your website, blog, or other online marketing campaigns.

With over 50 products and tools for search and market research data collected from over 100 sources, it is a top online visibility tool.

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• SEMrush offers a more comprehensive set of tools compared to BuzzSumo, making it a more versatile solution for digital marketers.
• It provides robust keyword analysis and content marketing suggestions, which can help businesses improve their online visibility.

Cons:

• Unlike BuzzSumo, SEMrush does not offer a free plan.
• It may not be as focused on social media chatter and real-time conversation tracking as BuzzSumo.

Best for

SEMrush is best for digital marketers, brand managers, and anyone looking for a comprehensive online visibility tool. It is particularly useful for those who need to conduct competitive keyword analysis and want robust content marketing suggestions and analysis.

2. Ubersuggest

The best alternative to Buzzsumo is Ubersuggest.

This tool, from Neil Patel, is described as a free SEO tool and one to help boost traffic.

As a BuzzSumo alternative, it’s ideal for content strategy and competitor intelligence. The platform has many tools for finding working keywords for your content and optimizing your website.

Let’s start with the “Content Ideas” feature, which is what you’re probably looking for if you’re reading this article. Enter any keyword or topic to instantly generate content ideas, pulled from the web.

Like Buzzsumo, Ubersuggest not only gives you the most popular articles on the web for each topic you search for but also tells you the estimated visits and number of backlinks. That can help you gauge a topic’s popularity.

Furthermore, it will show you how many shares the article got on social media, including on Facebook, Pinterest, and Reddit. That serves as yet another metric to determine a topic’s popularity.

You can export the results in a CSV file or copy them to your clipboard. As a free user, you get three free searches a day.

With Ubersuggest, it’s very easy to know what your competitors are doing. You can analyze their content strategy by simply searching for their domain.

If you analyze keywords, you’ll get the top content and articles that are ranking on SERPs. To help you build your own content, Ubersuggest delivers intelligent keyword suggestions.

If you’re particular about SEO, the Ubersuggest tool uncovers your competitor’s best backlinks.

One advantage of using this tool over BuzzSumo is the A/B testing calculator. This allows you to analyze websites and marketing campaigns side-by-side to find out the best-performing ones.

Ubersuggest is also an ideal BuzzSumo alternative for monitoring. With it, you can track everyday changes in your rankings in more than 20 locations and on mobile or desktop. Finally, the platform features a Chrome Extension.

Ubersuggest is more ‘free’ than it is premium. There are advanced features you can access without a subscription, unlike BuzzSumo.

Nevertheless, the platform features premium plans for individuals and businesses who want to do more.

The paid plans are a lot cheaper than what BuzzSumo offers. You can either pay a monthly subscription or purchase the tool for a lifetime. The plans include:

Subscription Plans

• Individual Plan – $12 per month
• Business Plan – $20 per month
• Enterprise/Agency Plan – $40 per month

Lifetime Plans

• Individual Plan – $120 one-time payment
• Business Plan – $200 one-time payment
• Enterprise/Agency Plan – $400 one-time payment

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Ubersuggest offers a free version with advanced features, unlike BuzzSumo.
• It provides a comprehensive suite of SEO tools, including keyword research, site audit, and backlink analysis.

Cons:

• Ubersuggest may not be as comprehensive as BuzzSumo in terms of content discovery and social media analysis.
• The free version of Ubersuggest has limitations in terms of the number of searches and results per day.

Best for

Ubersuggest is best for small to medium-sized businesses, SEO professionals, and content marketers who are looking for a cost-effective tool for keyword research, site audits, and backlink analysis.

3. Ahrefs

Ahrefs is a comprehensive SEO tool that is recognized as a powerful alternative to BuzzSumo, particularly for content ideation and backlink analysis. It is known for its fast backlink crawler and has crawled over 12 trillion links.

Ahrefs goes beyond showing the most linked and trending content by allowing users to check the most-visited pages and backlinks.

Key Features and Selling Points

• Refined search results with advanced operators
• Rank tracking features
• In-depth research into a piece of content
• Powerful keyword research and extended media research capabilities

Pricing and Plans

Ahrefs does offer a selection of free SEO tools that can help with various tasks such as keyword research, on-page SEO, link building, and more.

 These tools include Ahrefs Webmaster Tools, Ahrefs’ Keyword Generator, and a free SERP checker.

However, the free tools are limited compared to a paid Ahrefs account. 

For full access to all of Ahrefs’ features, a paid subscription is required. The company does not offer a completely free version of its comprehensive SEO toolset

Ahrefs provides a $7 trial for 7 days. The pricing for Ahrefs’ plans is as follows:

• Lite: $99 per month
• Standard: $199 per month
• Advanced: $399 per month
• Agency: $999 per month

Features and Functionality

Ahrefs offers a suite of tools that include:

• Technical site audits
• Keyword research
• Content insights
• Backlink profile analysis
• Rank tracking

Pros and Cons

Pros:

• Ahrefs has a more comprehensive set of SEO tools compared to BuzzSumo, which is more content-focused.
• It provides detailed backlink analysis and keyword research tools that are valuable for improving SEO.

Cons:

• Ahrefs is generally more expensive than BuzzSumo, which may be a consideration for some users.
• It may require prior experience to fully leverage the tool’s capabilities.

Best for

Ahrefs is best suited for SEO professionals, digital marketers, and content creators who need in-depth SEO insights and are focused on improving their website’s organic search performance. It is also valuable for those who are interested in detailed backlink analysis and keyword research to inform their content strategy

4. Google Alerts

Did you know that Google allows you to set up alerts for specific topics, keywords, and content ideas?

You’ll get curated content sent straight to your email inbox, giving you an unlimited number of content ideas for your blog.

Since Google’s search engine is so powerful, you’ll get access to a broad range of content from various publishers. That’s what makes it such a great alternative to Buzzsumo.

Sources include blogs, videos, news articles, books, and more, and you can set up alerts in multiple languages.

You have control over how often you get those emails, as you can set it at a maximum of once a day or once a week. You can also filter for specific sources (such as video content only or books) and filter for content from a specific region.

Google Alerts is free and easy to use. Before you set up your actual alert, you will see a preview of how it will look.5

5. ShareIt by Social Pilot

Social Pilot has created an excellent Buzzsumo alternative called ShareIt. This free tool allows for both content discovery and influencer discovery, like Buzzsumo.

Start by entering a topic into the search bar. The tool will then sift through the most popular content on the internet covering that topic.

There will be two tabs in the search results: Articles and Influencers.

Under the Articles tab, you will find popular articles that were recently published. That’s one of the things I like about ShareIt – the content is fresh, while on Buzzsumo, much of the content it shows you has been published a while back.

You can filter the results by relevance or time.

ShareIt will tell you exactly how long ago, to the hour, each article was published. You can view the article or republish it to your social media feed.

6. Feedly

An interesting alternative to Buzzsumo is Feedly; it allows you to find and follow websites and feeds.

It’s free to sign up. Start by entering a topic or hashtag into the search bar, and suggested feeds will come up.

You can gauge a feed’s popularity by checking how many followers it has. Click on any feed to see the most popular articles on that feed.

If you like a feed, follow it. The articles it publishes will then appear in your timeline, which makes it a quite convenient alternative to Buzzsumo.

By following a certain number of feeds, you can get a constant flow of content ideas right in your timeline. You can also use folders to organize your feeds and topics, which is useful if you have multiple clients or blogs.

It’s possible to use Feedly to track Twitter and Reddit conversations, but you’ll need to upgrade to a premium plan to do that.

Overall, Feedly is an excellent Buzzsumo alternative for keeping track of trending conversations and content ideas on the web.

Also Read: Best Free SEO Writing Assistant Software

7. Twitter Lists

An amazing content discovery tool to have in your arsenal is free and doesn’t require any additional downloading or account creation if you already have a Twitter account, unlike Buzzsumo.

It’s called Twitter Lists, and it’s a tool that Twitter created to help users better prioritize the tweets and content they see.

Like most social media platforms, Twitter has a standard feed that shows you content published by people you follow. However, what if you want to follow different people in different niches?

Perhaps you’re interested in several topics or run multiple blogs (for yourself or clients) that cover entirely different industries. In that case, having the same feed for all those topics can be disorienting, as it can make it hard to find the specific content ideas you want.

On the other hand, creating multiple Twitter accounts is tedious and doesn’t make much sense.

That’s where Twitter Lists come into the picture. You can create lists that revolve around different topics and follow people who are influencers in specific niches or industries.

For example, if you want to get content ideas for blogging and content marketing, you might follow people like Neil Patel. If you want to learn about investing, you might follow accounts like The Motley Fool or Dave Ramsey.

You can add and remove people from lists at will, and you can pin your favorite list to the top of your homepage, so you don’t miss out on any important news.

Twitter lists are awesome, in my opinion, for staying on top of trending topics. You can not only create your own lists but even join lists that others have created.

If you don’t want others to join or see your list, simply make it private.

8. AllTop

AllTop is a simple but free alternative to Buzzsumo that aggregates the most popular headlines from around the web covering particular topics. On the homepage, it will display the most recent articles from popular sites like TechCrunch, the Washington Post, Wired, and others.

However, you can also browse results for specific topics, such as:

• Cryptocurrency
• Android
• Beauty
• Travel
• And many others

Furthermore, if you create an account, you can create a customized RSS feed.

AllTop might look a bit outdated, but it can actually be a very useful content discovery tool for your arsenal. Simply bookmark the topic you’re interested in the most and refresh the page whenever you want to see trending content ideas.

One of the cool things about AllTop is that you can compare the most recently-published articles on top sites, allowing you to clearly identify content trends.

9. Scoop.it

Scoop It, or Scoop.it, is another great content discovery tool. It’s a great alternative to Buzzsumo because it’s effective not only for content discovery but for content curation as well.

It also offers the ability to let your whole team monitor and discover new content with a team account.

To start searching for content, simply sign up using your Twitter or Facebook account and enter a keyword or topic into the search bar. The tool will show you “scoops,” or news stories and articles related to that topic.

You can view or follow scoops.

One thing that sets Scoop.it apart from Buzzsumo is that not only can you discover content created by others but you can also create your own “topic pages” that curate content on specific topics. You can create multiple topic pages, and people searching through Scoop.it can find you.

You can add your own CTAs and links to those topic pages to generate conversions.

If you want, you can follow topic pages created by others. In your profile, you’ll see the topic pages and scoops you’re following.

However, you’re not limited to curating content on topic pages. You can also use topic pages to generate newsletters, publish them to WordPress, or publish them to your social media feeds.

While Scoop.it is free to use for content discovery, some features, such as publishing your curated content to social, require a premium plan.

Scoop.it has mobile apps for Android and iOS, another reason many people prefer it to Buzzsumo, as you can find trending content on the go. Not only that, but it integrates with many internet marketing tools.

For example, it integrates with MailChimp to allow you to send newsletters with curated content. Other tools it integrates with include Buffer, a social media scheduling tool, and AddThis, which allows you to add social media sharing buttons to your site.

10. Pocket

A very convenient alternative to Buzzsumo is Pocket. It allows you to save interesting content from around the web to a little web “pocket,” which you can check later if you want to read them or review content ideas you have saved.

Since Pocket has a mobile app, unlike Buzzsumo, it makes it very easy to find content ideas while on the bus or waiting at the doctor’s office.

However, Pocket will also select the best articles from the web covering the topics you’re interested in and present them to you, making it a great way to get a constant feed of intriguing topic ideas.

To start, sign up with your Google, Apple, or Firefox account. Then, select the topics that you’re interested in – options include travel, business, parenting, personal finance, health and fitness, and others.

You’ll be taken to your personalized feed with article suggestions. You can update the topics you follow at any time by clicking on “Update Topics” in the top-right corner of your personalized feed.

If you like an article, you can save it, and it will show up in your “Saves” tab. You can also click on the “Discover” tab to find trending and popular content across the web.

A cool feature of Pocket is that you can listen to articles with the audio playback feature. If you’re a busy person always on the go, and you don’t have time to read articles, listening to them can help you make better use of your time and get content ideas.

While Pocket is free to use, the premium plan will give you access to additional features, such enhanced search options to help you find trending content on more specific topics. Also, when you save articles, Pocket will suggest tags, which you can add to better filter and customize your personalized feed.

Another perk of the premium plan is that you won’t have to see any ads.

What Are The Other Ways to Discover Content?

There are so many free tools that allow you to discover content ideas. You just have to know how to use them properly for content discovery.

Reddit is a good example. It’s actually one of the best places to go if you want to find which topics are trending in particular communities and niches.

It’s easy to follow topics. On Reddit, communities and topics are called “Subreddits.”

For example, the cryptocurrency subreddit has around six million members. There are subreddits for travel, social media marketing, personal finance, budgeting, and virtually everything else under the sun.

Anyone can create a subreddit, and regardless of how niche you think a topic is, someone has likely already built a community on Reddit surrounding that topic. All you have to do is use the search bar to find the subreddit and then join it, so new posts show up in your homepage.

These new posts can serve as fodder for new article ideas. You can also go to a subreddit and filter for top, controversial, hot, and popular posts, allowing you to stay on top of emerging trends.

Quora is another good place to find content ideas. It’s a Q&A site, but browsing the recently-posted questions about a topic will help you find trending content ideas; you can also get alerts of new topics and questions sent to your email.

We already touched upon Twitter lists, but Twitter itself can be an excellent search tool for finding trending topics. Just go to the search bar and enter a topic or hashtag.

You can also go to the Twitter trending page to find trending topics.

Finally, remember that email newsletters are your friend. Find the top newsletters in the niche and subscribe to them to pinpoint trends.

In Gmail, you can create folders and specify that emails from certain addresses go to specific folders to organize the newsletters and prevent them from cluttering your inbox.

Finally, another great place to get content ideas is no other than YouTube. You can follow channels or use the search bar to find content on specific topics (filter by time to find the most recent videos published on a topic).

Best BuzzSumo Alternatives – Recap

Content research and monitoring are a major part of every digital marketing campaign. This is why tools like BuzzSumo and most of its alternatives are freemium.

If BuzzSumo is too expensive for you, then you can go with any of the alternatives that are cheaper and offer more features with a free account.