Rilea SEO vs Yoast SEO.

Two plugins with the same goal

Yoast SEO is the most widely used SEO plugin for WordPress, and for good reason. It made on-page SEO approachable for millions of site owners with a simple idea: pick a focus keyphrase, write your post, and follow a checklist of suggestions. Rilea SEO works in a similar way, so if you've used Yoast SEO, the Rilea SEO panel in the editor will feel familiar from the first post.

Where the two differ is the business model. Yoast SEO keeps a set of important features in Yoast SEO Premium, which costs $118.80 a year for each site. Rilea SEO has no premium version, and includes those same features for free. This page looks at what that means in practice, area by area, and is honest about where Yoast SEO is still ahead.

What's the same

On the basics, the two plugins cover the same ground:

• An SEO title and meta description for every page, with a Google preview
• Templates for titles and descriptions across post types and taxonomies
• Content analysis against a focus keyphrase
• Readability analysis with sentence length, paragraph length, passive voice and transition words
• An XML sitemap index at /sitemap_index.xml
• Schema markup for your site, pages and articles
• Open Graph and X tags for social sharing
• Breadcrumbs, robots controls and canonical URLs

If those are all you use, both plugins will serve you well. The differences start with the features in the next sections.

Keyphrases and synonyms

In Yoast SEO's free version, each post has one focus keyphrase. Related keyphrases and synonyms are part of Premium, which allows up to five keyphrases and matches word forms, so a check for "running shoe" also recognises "running shoes".

Rilea SEO includes a focus keyphrase, up to four related keyphrases and synonyms, with word-form matching, in its free plugin. That matters because most pages rank for more than one phrase. A guide to choosing running shoes might also want to rank for "trail running shoes" and "best running shoes for beginners", and being able to check all three helps you cover them without overusing any one.

Redirects

Every site eventually changes URLs, whether through a redesign, a new category structure or a renamed post. Without a redirect, the old URL returns a 404 and any links pointing to it stop passing value.

Yoast SEO's redirect manager is a Premium feature. In the free version, changing a URL doesn't create a redirect automatically, so many free users install a separate redirect plugin. Rilea SEO includes a full redirect manager: exact, contains, starts-with, ends-with and regex matching, status codes from 301 to 451, a hit counter, CSV import and export, automatic 301s when a published URL changes, and a 404 monitor.

Internal linking

Yoast SEO Premium suggests posts to link to while you write and helps you find orphaned content. Rilea SEO does both in its free plugin, ranks cornerstone content higher in its suggestions, and counts internal, external and incoming links for every post in the posts list.

Local, news and video SEO

Yoast used to sell Local SEO, Video SEO and News SEO as separate add-ons. They're now part of Yoast SEO Premium at $118.80 a year per site.

Rilea SEO includes all three for free: unlimited business locations with their own addresses, hours and LocalBusiness schema, a Google News sitemap for publishers, and a video sitemap that detects YouTube, Vimeo and self-hosted video in your content.

WooCommerce

For online stores, Yoast sells a separate WooCommerce SEO plan at $178.80 a year, which includes Premium. Rilea SEO adds full Product schema to WooCommerce products for free, with brand, GTIN, MPN, an offer per variant, reviews, shipping and returns, and sets hidden products to noindex.

Shopify

Yoast SEO for Shopify is a hosted app in the Shopify App Store at $19 a month, or $190 a year. It's easy to install and polished.

Rilea SEO for Shopify is free, with an SEO editor, live keyphrase and readability analysis, templates, a bulk grid editor with undo, CSV import and export, and product, collection, article and page schema. It's an early release and self-hosted, so a developer deploys it to your own server and installs it as a custom app. If you want a one-click install today, Yoast's app is the simpler option. If you have a developer and want to avoid a monthly fee, Rilea SEO is worth a look.

What it costs over time

Because Yoast SEO Premium is priced per site, the cost grows with every site you run. At $118.80 a year per site:

• 1 site: $118.80 a year
• 5 sites: $594 a year
• 10 sites: $1,188 a year
• 25 sites: $2,970 a year

WooCommerce stores on Yoast's WooCommerce SEO plan pay $178.80 a year each, and Shopify stores on Yoast's app pay $228 a year at the monthly rate, or $190 on the yearly plan. Rilea SEO costs nothing at any of those sizes. These figures use Yoast's public prices in November 2026, before any discounts or tax.

Where Yoast SEO is ahead

Yoast SEO has real advantages, and it's worth being clear about them:

• AI tools. Yoast SEO Premium includes AI features that generate and improve titles and meta descriptions. Rilea SEO has no AI writing tools.
• Track record. Yoast SEO has been refined over many years and millions of sites. Rilea SEO is new, so it hasn't been tested as widely.
• Support and training. Yoast offers support with Premium and a large library of training material. Rilea SEO offers support by email and its own documentation.
• Languages. Yoast SEO's readability analysis supports many languages. Rilea SEO's readability checks are written for English.
• Shopify convenience. Yoast's Shopify app installs from the App Store without a developer.

Switching from Yoast SEO

Rilea SEO can import everything Yoast SEO stored in your database: SEO titles and descriptions, focus keyphrases, related keyphrases and synonyms, robots settings, canonical URLs, breadcrumb titles, social titles and images, cornerstone flags, primary categories, category and tag settings, redirects created with Yoast SEO Premium, and main settings such as verification codes.

The importer only reads Yoast SEO's data. It doesn't change or delete it, so you can switch back at any time. Install Rilea SEO, run the importer from Rilea SEO, then Tools, deactivate Yoast SEO and save your permalinks. Both plugins use /sitemap_index.xml, so the sitemap address you submitted to Google stays the same. The import guide covers each step and what to check afterwards.

Should you switch?

Switch to Rilea SEO if you pay for Yoast SEO Premium mainly for redirects, extra keyphrases, internal linking, or local, news or video SEO, or if you'd like those features but don't want to pay per site. Agencies with many client sites save the most.

Stay with Yoast SEO if you rely on its AI tools, need its support or training, publish mostly in a language other than English, or want a Shopify app that installs without a developer.

If you're not sure, try Rilea SEO on one site. Import your Yoast SEO data, compare the output for a week, and keep whichever suits you better. Because the import doesn't touch Yoast SEO's data, going back takes a minute.

Writing a post in each plugin

The day-to-day experience is where most people decide which plugin they prefer, so here's how optimising a typical post compares.

In Yoast SEO, you open the Yoast panel, enter one focus keyphrase in the free version, and work through the SEO and readability checks. To check a second phrase you need Premium. The Google preview shows your title and description, and social previews sit in a separate tab.

In Rilea SEO, you open the Rilea SEO panel and enter a focus keyphrase, plus up to four related keyphrases and synonyms if you want them. The checks update as you type, alongside a readability tab and an inclusive-language tab. The Google preview shows desktop and mobile versions with a pixel-width meter for the title and a length meter for the description. Link suggestions appear in the same panel, so you can add internal links without leaving the editor. Advanced options such as canonical URLs, robots settings, a per-post redirect and the schema type are all in one place.

Both approaches get you to the same result: a post with a clear title, a useful description and content that covers the phrases you want to rank for. The main difference is how many phrases you can check and whether you pay to do it.

Data you keep

With either plugin, your SEO data lives in your own WordPress database. That's good for you, because it means you're never locked in. Rilea SEO can read Yoast SEO's data, and if you later want to move on from Rilea SEO, your titles and descriptions stay in your own database as ordinary post data.

Rilea SEO doesn't send your site's content or settings anywhere. The only outside requests it makes are the ones you turn on: IndexNow notifications to participating search engines when you publish, and the SEO Analyzer fetching a URL you ask it to check.

Trying Rilea SEO without committing

You can test Rilea SEO safely on a live site. Install it, run the importer, then deactivate Yoast SEO and look at your pages for a few days. Check the page source, the sitemap and the 404 monitor, and write a couple of posts with the new panel. If you decide Yoast SEO suits you better, reactivate it and deactivate Rilea SEO. Because Yoast SEO's data was never changed, your site goes straight back to how it was, with nothing to restore. Any SEO changes you made in Rilea SEO during the test won't carry back to Yoast SEO, so note them if you want to keep them.