Apify review
A web scraping and browser-automation platform with a store of Actors, billed in compute units and proxies.
A web scraping and browser-automation platform with a store of Actors, billed in compute units and proxies.
Reviewed by
Vincent Edes · Founder & reviewer
Last reviewed Sep 3, 2026
Apify cloud platform showcasing serverless Actors and scheduled web automations.
Apify is a full cloud automation platform founded in Prague by Jan Čurn. Rather than providing a single URL-to-text endpoint, Apify hosts modular serverless programs called Actors. You can run community-maintained scrapers from the Apify Store or deploy your own custom crawlers in JavaScript or Python. When your team needs scheduled data extraction from major sites like Google Maps, Amazon, or Instagram, using an existing Store Actor is often much faster than building scrapers yourself.
Billing operates as prepaid platform credit rather than a flat software license. The Starter plan on their pricing page costs $19 per month and deposits $19 of credit into your balance, while paying annually costs $17 per month and saves you about 10 percent across the year. That credit pays for server compute units ($0.20 per gigabyte-hour of RAM), residential proxy traffic (starting at $8 per gigabyte), and any third-party fees charged by Store Actor authors.
This model provides great flexibility for complex automations, but tracking compute units, memory limits, and proxy data transfer can be difficult for newcomers. Running a heavy Actor can deplete an entry balance quickly, and unused prepaid credits expire at the end of each billing cycle. However, the platform includes built-in cron scheduling, structured dataset exports, and a permanent free tier with $5 in monthly platform credits.
Apify is best suited for recurring data collection and specialized marketplace scrapers where a generic API falls short. If you only need a clean scrape-and-crawl endpoint that returns Markdown with predictable per-page credits, choose Firecrawl. If you want brand assets alongside web scraping, look at Context.dev. Explore all options in our web scraping API catalog.
What's included with Apify
- Apify Store with thousands of ready-made scrapers and crawlers
- Serverless platform to build, run, and host custom Actors
- Prepaid monthly usage model with flexible overage budget limits
- Integrated cron job scheduling and structured dataset export tools
- Residential, datacenter, and specialized unblocker proxy networks
Our review
Apify pros and cons
Pros
- Vast marketplace of prebuilt scrapers for popular websites
- Serverless environment for building and hosting custom scrapers
- Free tier includes five dollars of platform usage monthly
- Automated cron scheduling and structured dataset export features
Cons
- Metered billing across memory, proxies, and third-party fees
- Unused monthly platform credits expire at cycle end
- Steeper initial learning curve than basic scraping APIs
- Lacks native Model Context Protocol support for agents
Best for
Data engineers and agencies that need ready-made scrapers for major platforms like Google Maps or Amazon, and who prefer running scheduled browser tasks in a managed cloud environment.
Skip if
You only need a simple API that returns Markdown for an AI prompt, or you prefer a straightforward flat-rate credit price per page.
Score breakdown
- Features: 4.6 out of 5
- The Apify Store provides thousands of prebuilt scrapers, combined with serverless hosting for custom code, cron scheduling, and dataset storage. It functions as a complete automation platform rather than a simple endpoint, which makes it comprehensive for complex jobs but unnecessarily heavy for basic page extraction.
- Reliability: 4.2 out of 5
- Apify supports high-volume enterprise crawls with optional residential proxies and specialized anti-scraping bypass modules. Overall reliability depends on the specific Actor you deploy, as community-maintained scrapers may require updates when target site layouts change.
- Value: 3.6 out of 5
- The $19 Starter plan provides $19 in platform fuel, but residential proxy bandwidth and paid third-party Actor fees can deplete that balance quickly. While the $5 monthly free tier offers an accessible testing sandbox, budgeting remains less predictable than flat-rate page pricing.
- Docs & SDKs: 4.4 out of 5
- Documentation and learning materials are extensive, offering detailed technical guides for developing, deploying, and monitoring Actors. The platform's complexity means you must invest time understanding compute units, container memory limits, and storage quotas.
- Ease of use: 3.5 out of 5
- Launching a preconfigured Store Actor from the web dashboard takes only a few clicks, but building a custom crawler or integrating programmatically with the Actor API requires significant setup. Teams seeking a simple URL-in, text-out workflow will find single-endpoint APIs much easier to adopt.
The Apify Store provides thousands of prebuilt scrapers, combined with serverless hosting for custom code, cron scheduling, and dataset storage. It functions as a complete automation platform rather than a simple endpoint, which makes it comprehensive for complex jobs but unnecessarily heavy for basic page extraction.
Apify supports high-volume enterprise crawls with optional residential proxies and specialized anti-scraping bypass modules. Overall reliability depends on the specific Actor you deploy, as community-maintained scrapers may require updates when target site layouts change.
The $19 Starter plan provides $19 in platform fuel, but residential proxy bandwidth and paid third-party Actor fees can deplete that balance quickly. While the $5 monthly free tier offers an accessible testing sandbox, budgeting remains less predictable than flat-rate page pricing.
Documentation and learning materials are extensive, offering detailed technical guides for developing, deploying, and monitoring Actors. The platform's complexity means you must invest time understanding compute units, container memory limits, and storage quotas.
Launching a preconfigured Store Actor from the web dashboard takes only a few clicks, but building a custom crawler or integrating programmatically with the Actor API requires significant setup. Teams seeking a simple URL-in, text-out workflow will find single-endpoint APIs much easier to adopt.
Creator
Jan Čurn
Follow on XPricing
Starter
Popular$19/month
Per month · $19 of prepaid usage per month. $17 a month if billed annually.
- $19 prepaid usage per month
- $0.20 per compute unit
- 64 GB max Actor RAM, 32 concurrent runs
- Chat support and Bronze Store discount
Price last checked: September 3, 2026
Tech stack
- Pricing type
- Subscription Free tier
- Type
- Scraping Crawling Platform / marketplace
- Output
- Structured JSON HTML
- Capabilities
- JavaScript rendering Anti-bot / proxies
Alternative web scraping APIs
If Apify is not the right fit, these are the closest alternatives based on pricing, features, and use case.
Firecrawl
Best for AI agentsChoose Firecrawl if you want a straightforward scraping and crawling endpoint that returns clean Markdown with predictable per-page credits.
Context.dev
Best for brand dataChoose Context.dev if you need both page scraping and domain brand data with a simpler credit-per-page model and zero container configuration.
Frequently asked questions
How does Apify pricing work?
Apify uses a prepaid usage system rather than charging a fixed software license. The free tier includes $5 in monthly platform credits, while the Starter plan costs $19 per month and deposits $19 into your account balance. Higher plans like Scale at $199 per month and Business at $999 per month unlock lower compute rates and higher concurrency. Subscribing on an annual basis reduces paid plans by roughly 10 percent.
What is an Apify compute unit?
A compute unit measures server memory consumption over time, representing one gigabyte of RAM running for one hour. Compute units are billed at $0.20 on the Starter plan and $0.16 on the Scale plan. Keep in mind that residential proxy data transfer and specialized Actor developer fees are billed separately alongside compute usage.
Is Apify considered a traditional web scraping API?
Apify functions more as a cloud automation platform than a simple scraping endpoint. Rather than making a single call to convert a webpage into text, you run autonomous Actor programs that navigate websites, extract large datasets, and store the output in structured collections.
Do unused platform credits roll over to following months?
No, unused prepaid usage credits expire at the end of each monthly billing period and do not carry forward. However, if your automations exhaust your prepaid allowance, paid plans let you continue running tasks using pay-as-you-go overage up to a budget cap you configure.
Sources & research
Claims in our review are checked against primary sources, changelogs, official documentation, and founder updates.