Apify

Apify is a cloud platform that turns websites into structured data and automates online workflows using serverless micro-services called Actors. Founded in 2015, it serves over 2 million users and 10,000 companies, including Microsoft, Google, and IBM, who use it for market research, lead generation, and content aggregation.

What Apify does:

• •Actor Marketplace Choose from over 1,500 pre-built, no-code scrapers and automation tools for sites like Amazon, LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram. Deploy with one click to extract product data, monitor prices, or gather social posts.
• •Custom Actor Development Build your own serverless scrapers and automations using JavaScript, TypeScript, or Python. The platform handles proxies, retries, and scaling, so you focus on the extraction logic.
• •Schedule & Chain Workflows Set cron jobs to run Actors daily, weekly, or monthly. Chain multiple Actors together to create complex data pipelines, like scraping data, cleaning it, and sending it to a Google Sheet.
• •Data Export & Integrations Export results directly to CSV, JSON, Excel, or Google Sheets. Connect to Zapier, Make, Slack, and other apps to trigger actions when data changes or new results arrive.
• •Model Context Protocol (MCP) Support Integrate Apify Actors directly into AI agent workflows via the official MCP server. This lets agents like Claude or Hermes trigger web scraping tasks as part of a larger automated process.
• •REST API Control the entire platform programmatically. The API lets you start Actors, fetch results, and manage schedules from your own applications, enabling custom dashboards and internal tools.
• •Apify Web Scraper Extension A browser extension for Chrome and Edge that helps you build scrapers visually. Click on page elements to select data and generate a ready-to-run Actor.
• •Desktop Applications Native apps for macOS and Windows provide a dedicated interface for managing your Actors, datasets, and task queues outside the browser.

Limitations:

• •Credit-based pricing is hard to predict — Apify charges by compute unit (1 GB RAM x 1 hour), and many third-party Actors in the Apify Store add extra per-result fees on top. Until you've run your specific scraper a few times, it's genuinely difficult to know what a job will cost.
• •Free plan runs out fast on real tasks — The free tier gives you $5 in monthly credits, which is enough for light experimentation but gets consumed quickly on any scrape involving JavaScript rendering, proxy rotation, or large result sets.
• •Big gap between plan tiers — Paid plans jump from $49/month (Personal) to $499/month (Scale) and then $999/month (Business). There is no mid-range option, so growing teams face a steep step-up cost when they outgrow the entry tier.
• •Requires technical setup for custom scrapers — Pre-built Actors cover common targets (Google Maps, Amazon, LinkedIn), but if your use case isn't covered, you need a developer to write and maintain a custom Actor. This isn't a no-code tool for non-technical business owners.
• •Monthly credits don't roll over — Unused credits expire at the end of each billing cycle. If your scraping needs are seasonal or irregular, you're paying for capacity you won't always use.

Pricing:

• •Free 10 compute hours per month, access to Actor marketplace, basic scheduling, and data storage.
• •Personal $49/month for 100 compute hours, priority support, and up to 10 concurrent tasks.
• •Team $499/month for 1,000 compute hours, 100 concurrent tasks, and team collaboration features.
• •Enterprise Custom pricing with dedicated infrastructure, custom proxy solutions, advanced security compliance, and a dedicated account manager.