Short answer: Beer, the next village west, is the obvious alternative — a sheltered shingle cove with working fishing boats, more interesting than Seaton's long pebble beach. Seaton itself is rarely crowded out of season; the beach is pebbles everywhere along this coast.
This is the Jurassic Coast and the beaches here are shingle and pebble rather than sand. If you have come looking for the kind of beach Woolacombe has, you are on the wrong side of the county. What this coast offers instead is cliffs, fossils and coves, which is a different and arguably better thing.
The next village west and the one to go to. A sheltered shingle cove under white chalk cliffs with working fishing boats pulled up on the beach and a winch still in use. It is small, which means it does get busy in August, but it is more interesting to sit on than Seaton's long straight front.
Seaton's beach is long and rarely crowded outside the summer peak. In spring and autumn you can have most of it to yourself, and the esplanade above it is flat the whole way. The town is quieter than its east Devon neighbours generally.
Not a beach, but the alternative water. The estuary at the wetlands gives you birds, mud flats and the river, with accessible paths and hides. On a windy day it is more pleasant than the open front.
The Undercliff, the landslip reserve running east towards Lyme Regis, is extraordinary — an overgrown fallen landscape with no exits once you commit. It is a full-day walk rather than a beach, with no way to cut it short, and that is exactly why almost nobody is on it.
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