Does paid software measure the competitiveness the same way as GKP does ?

Google Keyword Planner measures the keyword competitiveness by calculating "the number of advertisers bidding on each keyword relative to all keywords across Google" - according to the big G. However, I find this measurement way is suitable for ones who use Google Adwords, not for SEO-ers.

Other software has the measurement function, too. For example, you have to pay 17$/mo in order to get Long Tail Pro calculate the competitiveness (Platinum features).

Does paid software measure the competitiveness the same way as GKP does ? I have heard somewhere that those software takes information by crawling from GKP...

Since I haven't purchase any paid software yet so I cannot test the function myself. Anyone has an idea ?

They also take care of seo metrics(ref domain,emd,trust etc) of top ranking sites to estimate how difficult is to beat those.