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Apify

Score9.1 out of 10

452 Reviews and Ratings

What is Apify?

Apify is a platform for web data extraction and automation. The core component is the Apify Store, a marketplace where developers can publish and monetize serverless cloud programs called Actors.

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Categories & Use Cases

Media

Screenshot of a marketplace of 10,000+ ready-made Actors for scraping Amazon, Google Maps, social media, tracking prices, and generating leads.
Screenshot of Actors, which feature an auto-generated UI for setting their input.
Screenshot of the Actors' scheduling and integration interface, where users can connect them with platforms such as Zapier, the Google Suite, GitHub or feed LLMs through LangChain and LlamaIndex.
Screenshot of web scraping templates that can be used to build Actors. Users can also import existing code from a Git repo and publish a project in the Apify Store and earn passive income.
Screenshot of Crawlee, Apify’s open-source web scraping library used to build reliable web scrapers that don’t get blocked. Available in Python and Node.js

1 / 5

Screenshot of a marketplace of 10,000+ ready-made Actors for scraping Amazon, Google Maps, social media, tracking prices, and generating leads.

Who Buys & Uses Apify

Apify Reviews

What users are saying about Apify.
View all Apify reviews

Pros

  • Robust web scraping capabilities for complex websites and social media
  • Extensive catalog of pre-built scrapers (actors) for diverse data needs
  • Intuitive interface and no-code options for simplified workflow setup

Cons

  • Unpredictable and unclear credit-based pricing structure
  • Inconsistent quality and reliability of some actors (incomplete data, breakdowns)
  • Steep learning curve and potentially cluttered interface for new users

A practical platform for turning scrapers into repeatable data products

Viktor KondásView profile
Senior Manager in Finance and Accounting at Iron Mountain (10,001+ employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Apify for building, testing, and running web scraping and collecting data for my projects. I also publish actors into the Apify store, so I use the platform both as a user and a developer. The main problem Apify solves for me is getting data from websites, without the need to build the entire scraping infrastructure by myself, rather just use already existing ones. The console is also pretty straightforward adding your inputs for your scrapper, and save it is your need to reuse the same configuration at a later date and export out the data in a structured format.

Pros

  • It works great with website and social media data export opportunities and get data in a structured format.
  • Many actors operate with a low costs, you can get your data for a few cents only.
  • I also like that the same platform works both for users and developers, so I can pull data for myself if needed, but also to build actors which other users can utilise.

Cons

  • Development takes extra manual work. First, I create the actor locally, test it, it works, but then I upload to the console, it requires further configuration and testing. This local and cloud testing should be merged into one platform.
  • Prices could be somehow simplified. We have the usage prices, input and output prices per actor. No recommended price range for my actor, so I must check other users' actors to find out what my usage price should be, and what the sweet spot is, which is not too low and not too high.

Return on Investment

  • Reducing the amount of infrastructure I need to build around a data product, as Apify provides the environment, datasets, distribution in one platform.
  • There are associated costs, paid subscription tier, testing usages, Apify also keep their share or the price, so I don't necessarily own the full amount as a developer, platform takes all these out.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Playwright and n8n

Other Software Used

Playwright, n8n, GitHub

How I build a scraper for my work and then decide to turn it into a product to sell

Incentivized
Ivan SolovyevView profile
independent developer at isolovyev.net (1-10 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Apify to monitor listings on marketplaces for the availability of specific products and their prices, check information about companies I need for my work, and have also developed several of my own tools (actors) for gathering information from open sources. To collect data despite marketplace restrictions, I use resident proxies and specialised browsers. To begin with, I created six actors; this number has since increased to 11, and I have a few more in development – as soon as I find the time, I’ll be sure to publish them.

Pros

  • I rotate exit IP per session with Apify residential proxies.
  • The platform allows new versions of actors to be tested without disrupting current users.
  • The platform itself calculates how much the client will pay for a successful search. If the actor does not provide any data, the user does not pay for it.
  • The container allows you to use a windowed browser, which is important for working with marketplaces that do not display data to bots using headless browsers.

Cons

  • As the actor’s author, I can view summary statistics on how clients launch the actor, but there are no detailed logs. This makes it difficult to diagnose failed launches.
  • The site’s daily automated test flags functioning components as faulty and marks them as ‘under maintenance’ if a complex request exceeds the time allocated for the test.
  • The quality of the resident pool is not always ideal. Sometimes, it is not possible to retrieve data from a single address in the pool throughout the entire night.
  • Data on the monetisation of my actors is only available in the console. There is no API for retrieving information on revenue and payment details.

Return on Investment

  • It is possible to launch a paid product without renting a server. Between six and 11 actors, and around 470 client runs last month. Not bad for a start.
  • As an independent amateur developer, I find it convenient that my product doesn’t involve any running costs: no servers for updates, no proxy contracts, and no need to keep track of payments.
  • The journey from an idea to paying users in just a few days. You can test features without disrupting the operation of existing versions.
  • Scheduled runs allow you to retrieve data from several sources every night and view a single morning summary of the results.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Oxylabs and Oxylabs Scraper APIs

Other Software Used

n8n, Supabase, Playwright, Vercel

Apify is a game changer and now I cant live without it.

Incentivized
Adam PearceView profile
Founder in Marketing at Nero Engine (1-10 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

Before, I was manually searching Google Maps and different websites to try and find data on electricians and trying to find a hundred prospects to send outreach emails per day. Then I found Apify, and I used the Google Maps Scraper to do it for me when connected with Claude. Then Claude puts it: the listing's a notion for me. I was surprised how much easier it was and how much time it saves me. I was thinking about hiring a virtual assistant to do it for me, but now I found Apify. It saves me probably hundreds of thousands of dollars in having to pay someone to do the work for me. Now there's no way I can go back because it was so painful doing it manually. Now all the work gets done for me in an hour, which would normally take me probably a week. The only problem I'm facing now is that I want to do more, but I can't afford to upgrade my plan yet. It's still an absolute game-changer, and I can't live without it. I need roughly 500 prospects scanned per week, which is 2,000 per month. Not a chance I'm doing that manually again.

Pros

  • Ease of use
  • Fast
  • Dark mode

Cons

  • Cheaper
  • More results for a cheaper price.
  • Easier to explain in simple terms for beginners

Return on Investment

  • Saved me a lot of time
  • Saved me money
  • Save me from hiring virtual assistants
  • Save me wasting time on repetitive tasks
  • Save me headaches on stupid tasks like de-duplicating prospects

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Notion, Claude Code, Anthropic Claude, Wispr Flow, Final Cut Pro and HighLevel

Other Software Used

Anthropic Claude, Notion, YouTube Live, HighLevel, Wispr Flow

Apify brilliant marketplace for scrapers with some room for improvement.

Dylan Angleton
Co-Founder in Professional Services at Rocketfuel Digital (1-10 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

We use Apify for several use cases in our business, but the main ones are collecting data from sites that don't have good/reliable API endpoints. It feeds into our AI workflows, so I'm not manually copying info all day. We run a few actors every day for prospecting and research, and it's saved a lot of time. Setup was pretty easy once we got used to it, although some actors need tweaking when websites change.

Pros

  • They feature a massive actor library, so you don't have to build everything from scratch or maintain it.
  • Scheduling + web hooks makes automating data collection super easy.
  • Easy to scale from small tests to much bigger scraping jobs and fairly cheap to scale.

Cons

  • Better debugging: when an actor fails, the logs can be pretty overwhelming, especially if it's a Playwright browser issue. would be nice if it highlighted the actual root cause instead of digging through hundreds of log lines.
  • Versioning could be cleaner; sometimes you're not 100% sure which actor version you're running or what changes between releases. Better change logs and rollbacks would help.
  • Actor discovery can be a bit messy. There are loads of community actors, but quality varies a lot, so better verification, a rating system, and maintenance indicators would make it easier to know which ones are worth spending your credits on.

Return on Investment

  • ROI has definitely been positive for us, and I would say the biggest thing is time savings: instead of spending hours developing our own scrapers, we can just rent them from people who have built them before and are skilled at it.
  • It also lets us automate a lot of our prospecting workflows. We use it to collect data and feed it into our AI systems and enrich leads automatically.
  • We've been able to test ideas way quicker. Rather than spending days building infrastructure first, we can validate whether a data source is even worth using before investing more time in the project.

Usability

Alternatives Considered

Octoparse

Other Software Used

ClickUp, Miro, Spark Mail App

The best platform Ive found for solo developers to monetize data products

Incentivized
Asher Samwaka
Founder & Team Lead in Information Technology at Ahulu Technologies (1-10 employees)

Use Cases and Deployment Scope

I use Apify as a solo developer to build and monetize web scraping actors on the Apify Store. My main use case is extracting property listing data from Property24 accross 10 African countries, covering prices, locations, bedrooms, and more. The platform solves the problem of infrastructure, proxy rotation, cloud execution, dataset storage and billing as they are all handled by Apify so I can focus on the scraper logic itself. I've published 3 actors and successfully recieved my first Apify payout

Pros

  • Actor Monetization Infrastructure makes it easy to set my prices and recieve payouts without having to build a separate payment infrstructure myself.
  • Actor Store Distribution without much marketing on my part.
  • Amazing developer support team that is always there to help.

Cons

  • It's not clear how free-tier credit consumption translates to payable income. I spent months tracking analytics that showed revenue figures which turned out not to generate actual payout invoices.
  • The automated testing that flags actors as "under maintenance" is poorly documented. I had multiple failed builds before finding out that input schema default values are required for the tests to pass. This cost me store visibility while I figured it out.
  • The $100 minimum payout threshold isn't displayed anywhere obvious for the developers. I only discovered it by digging through documentation after wondering why my earnings weren't being paid out.

Return on Investment

  • I received a payout of more than $200 from a single month where I had paying users. I built and developed the scraper, Apify handled billing and payout. As a developer based in Namibia, receiving an international USD payout to my account was genuinely significant. The platform removed most barriers that would normally stop an African developer from monetizing software internationally
  • Building on Apify got me published on their official blog, which is the kind of credibility that is hard to get as a 23 year old developer in Namibia. That article is now indexed on Google and has already driven more visiblity to my actors than anything else I've done. It has become a portfolio piece that I reference in job applications and client conversations.
  • I am building my own software company. Having live monetized products on an international platform, a published article, and a track record of international payout gives the business credibility it wouldn't otherwise have at this stage.

Usability

Other Software Used

n8n, Firebase, GitHub, Claude Code

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