Head to head · Seo keywords · October 2026 research run
DataForSEO vs Moz API
DataForSEO scores 64.9 (B) on agent readiness against Moz API's 45.3 (E), and leads in every scored category. Both do seo keywords.
Which one, for what
Good for Agents and products that need raw SEO data in bulk at a low unit price, across SERPs, keyword volumes, backlinks, ranked keywords and traffic estimates, and that can work with a task queue.
Ahead on
- Reliability, 84 against 42
- Schema & documentation, 86 against 50
- Agent ergonomics, 84 against 74
- Security & auth, 45 against 38
- Payments & pricing, 40 against 20
- Maintenance & community, 82 against 28
- Transparency & trust, 74 against 59
Also in its favour
- Runs on your own machine
Watch for
The REST API takes one account-wide login and password over HTTP Basic, with no scopes or read-only credential
Moz API E
Good for Agents that need Domain Authority, backlink lists, link intersects, keyword volume and difficulty, search intent and ranking keywords at a low entry price, on a read-only data set.
Also in its favour
- No incidents deducted, where DataForSEO loses 6 points for them
Watch for
No working public status page was found, and moz.statuspage.io reports the Moz Status page as inactive
Score by category
| Category | Weight this run | DataForSEO | Moz API | Edge |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Reliability | 16%20 | 84 | 42 | DataForSEO +42 |
| Performance | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13%16.2 | 86 | 50 | DataForSEO +36 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13%16.2 | 84 | 74 | DataForSEO +10 |
| Security & auth | 14%17.5 | 45 | 38 | DataForSEO +7 |
| Payments & pricing | 10%12.5 | 40 | 20 | DataForSEO +20 |
| Task success | 10%pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7%8.8 | 82 | 28 | DataForSEO +54 |
| Transparency & trust | 7%8.8 | 74 | 59 | DataForSEO +15 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | -6 | 0 | |
| Total | 64.9 · B | 45.3 · E |
Facts side by side
| Fact | DataForSEO | Moz API |
|---|---|---|
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | DataForSEO OÜ | SEOmoz, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | https://api.dataforseo.com/v3/ | https://api.moz.com/jsonrpc |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio | HTTP, Streamable HTTP |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Pay per use | Freemium |
| Price for seo keywords | $0.06 per call | not published |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | Proprietary service under DataForSEO's terms of service. The MCP server is Apache-2.0 and the Python client is MIT | Proprietary service under the Moz API General Conditions (effective 12 August 2026 for new subscribers). Displaying Moz data to others requires attribution under the API legal page |
| Tools exposed | 4 | none |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | no |
| Last release | 2026-10-06 | 2026-08-14 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-06-12 | 2026-08-12 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-07-24 | 2025-04-08 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | not found in the text | yes |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | not found in the text | yes |
| Popularity | 251 stars, 32k npm/wk, 50k PyPI/wk | none |
Verdicts
DataForSEO
Per-request prices are public for every endpoint, a $1 credit and a free sandbox need no payment, and the status feed shows no incident since 15 June 2026. The REST API accepts one account-wide login and password with no scopes, and no SLA or security certification was found in the reviewed pages.
Moz API
The JSON-RPC API documents every error code, its rate limits and the row cost of each method, and failed validation uses no quota. No working status page, SLA, machine-readable spec or official SDK was found. Tokens carry no scopes, and the free plan needs a credit card.
Before you call either
DataForSEO
- Check
status_codeon the response and on every task. HTTP 200 is returned for most errors, and 20000 or 20100 means success - Append
.aito Live and Task GET paths to get the trimmed response. The MCPapi_requesttool does this unlessnoAiModeis true - Build against https://sandbox.dataforseo.com/v3/ first. It is free and returns dummy data in the production structure
- Use the standard queue (
task_post, thentask_getor apostback_url) for bulk work. Live Google Ads endpoints allow 12 requests a minute - Ask the account owner to set daily cost limits and an IP whitelist, since the credentials carry the whole prepaid balance
Moz API
- Send a request
idof at least 24 characters (letters, numbers and hyphens). A UUID works. Shorter ids are rejected with -32654. - Stop on a 401. Ten 401 or 403 responses in five minutes block the caller for 30 minutes.
- On 429 with code -32658 wait the
Retry-Afterseconds. On code -32650 no wait time is given, so back off exponentially. - Call
quota.lookup(free) before large pulls. List methods charge one row per result, andlimitis capped at 50 on link lists. - Poll
async.call.lookupfordata.keyword.serp.generate, and collect the result within 20 seconds of first seeing it complete.
Questions
Which is better for AI agents, DataForSEO or Moz API?
DataForSEO scores 64.9 (B) on agent readiness against Moz API's 45.3 (E), and leads in every scored category.
Do DataForSEO and Moz API need an API key?
DataForSEO takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Moz API needs an API key.
Can an agent call DataForSEO and Moz API without installing anything?
Yes. DataForSEO has a hosted endpoint at https://api.dataforseo.com/v3/ and Moz API at https://api.moz.com/jsonrpc.
Other comparisons with DataForSEO or Moz API
Machine-readable
- This page as Markdown
/compare/dataforseo-vs-moz-api.md· slim.min.md· JSON.json(or sendAccept: text/markdown) - Each listing in full
/api/v1/tools/dataforseo.json·/api/v1/tools/moz-api.json - From a terminal
anchor compare dataforseo moz-api(the CLI) - Over MCP
compare_tools {"a": "dataforseo", "b": "moz-api"}at/mcp, no key