Can’t decide between SEO Framework and Rank Math? This article will help you make the decision.
If you just want a quick answer, Rank math is a lot better.
Why? Because you need to PAY $7 a month for the SAME features on SEO Framework.
In this guide, I’ll compare SEO Framework vs Rank Math against a number of factors like their features, speed, user-friendliness etc.. to decide which is better.
Remember, all SEO plugins are bloatware and none of them will help you rank higher. Hitting a green or perfect score doesn’t mean anything and it definitely isn’t SEO.
SEO Framework Vs Rank Math
The main difference between SEO Framework and Rank Math is that the SEO Framework is lightweight and easier to set up, while Rank Math offers a lot of features for free.
⚡Also Read: Best SEO Niches
Let’s take a look at these plus more factors in detail:
1 Speed And Resources Used
The SEO Framework is super lightweight and their code is clean and optimized with only 36,000 lines of code. It’s the clear winner when it comes to speed.
Rank Math has more bloat and can have a small effect on site speed. They also send a lot of requests to their servers as well.
Moreover, Rank Math has about 96,000 lines of code and even has a RIPS Score (code security risk) of 10.
Still, I have gotten 90+ web vital scores on sites with Rank Math.
2 SEO Metrics And Features
Now to the most important part – features and metrics. Which is better? Rank Math by a mile!
SEO Framework only has essential features such as metadata, sitemaps, robots, and indexing.
These are pretty much the only things you need in an SEO plugin, to be honest, and that’s why a ton of advanced SEOs love this plugin.
That being said, it doesn’t have focus keyword and SEO checklists or readability score counters (like on Rank Math or Yoast) on its free plan, which is bad news for beginners.
RankMath has a TON of features from Woocom, local, and forum seo modules to redirections and 404 monitoring. It has 18 free modules!
It even lets you connect it to Google search console and analytics and show you how your site is performing + visitors stats right there on the dashboard.
These features are enough for 99% of the people. You don’t even need their Pro plan.
You can check out the whole list of features here.
3. Schema
Rankmath lets you add schema to your pages from a set of 10+ schema templates.
On their pro version, you can edit or generate schema manually and it even lets you grab schema code from third-party URLs.
TSF pro allows you to add site (homepage) and article schema, but that’s about it. They don’t have other types of schema templates and it doesn’t let you edit schema code.
4 Installation And Setup
It’s easier to install and set up The SEO Framework. The process is straightforward and there are no setup wizards or tons of modules to adjust like in Rank math.
The only thing I don’t like about TSF is installing the extensions separately.
5 User Friendly
The SEO Framework is more user-friendly than Rank Math.
It doesn’t have a lot of modules and features so beginners are unlikely to get confused. The interface/tabs look cleaner and easier to use as well.
⚡Also Read: Duplicate Without User-Selected Canonical
The only thing I don’t like is how they show the post stats. It makes stuff that doesn’t matter overcomplicated.
It shows stuff like archiving, and redirecting, pages can be followed… on huge boxes.
It is going to take a lot of getting used to.
6 Prices
If you plan on subscribing to a paid plan, Rankmath is a bit cheaper than The SEO Framework.
The Pro version of TSF starts at $84 and their business version costs $204. On the other hand, Rankmath Pro costs $59 and their business plan costs $199.
7 Pro Features
Don’t buy any of the Pro versions. IMHO the free Rankmath version already has everything you need.
However, their pro version has some cool new modules like content ai (similar to SurferSEO) and a schema gen/editor/copier.
They also offer ranking tracking, but you wouldn’t want to do this inside WordPress. Everything else looks like bloat to me.
The pro version of the SEO framework will give you access to all their extensions. The only useful ones that I see are the Focus and Local extensions – which are free in Rankmath.
Both of these offer good customer support as far as I know, but why would you need support anyway? In my 5+ years in SEO, I never needed email support for an SEO plugin.
So don’t be fooled by the shiny “Private” or “Priority” support on the pricing pages.
8 Compatibility With Other Plugins
Both these plugins work well with pretty much all the plugins out there as far as I know.
However, Rankmath might throw in errors when you use SCHEMA Pro along with it. This is because Rankmath generates its own schema for every post.
⚡Also Read: Alternate page with proper canonical tag
Still, you can quickly fix this by disabling the Rich code snippets module from Rankmath settings.
9 Ratings And Popularity
Rank Math is installed on a whooping 2 MILLION websites! It also has a 5-star overall rating on wordpress.org with over 5600+ user reviews (5,426 of them being 5 stars).
TSF is not that popular – it only has around 100K installs. However, it managed to get a 5-star overall rating with about 320+ reviews, out of which 309 are 5-star reviews.
Bottom Line
If you are a beginner, it would be better to go with Rank Math (free version) and just disable the modules you don’t need. It won’t mess up your site speed at all.
However, if you are a pro and just need basic functionality without all the bloat, SEO framework is a great choice.
