Apify vs Octoparse

NodeMaven

ScrapingBee

NodeMaven offers a proxy service that prioritizes IP quality through advanced filtering algorithms, ensuring ninety-five percent of IPs have clean records. The service provides residential and mobile proxies with sticky sessions lasting up to twenty-four hours, significantly longer than industry standards. NodeMaven supports both HTTP and SOCKS5 protocols with coverage across more than one hundred fifty countries and fourteen hundred cities worldwide.

Octoparse

Octoparse is a no-code scraper tool that powers individuals who don't know about coding to extract web data with great ease. Within the point-and-click interface, users can find more than 500 ready-made scraper templates. Custom scraping is also available for advanced scraping needs!

Web scraping API. Supply a URL, and ScrapingBee will handle headless browsers, proxies, CAPTCHAs solving.

Marketer

It is expensive also the customer care team is not quick to respond I think that should be addressed.

Senior Software Engineer

Apify is a managed service that scales to the user needs, It's support team helped to navigate and setup the project it reduces our time to go to market.

IT Architect

Also, taking into account the great customer support, it makes it one of the best services I have ever tried.

Apify is the largest marketplace of tools for AI. Thousands of Actors get web data and automate tasks.

Access Controls/Permissions

Activity Dashboard

AI/Machine Learning

Auto Extraction

Batch Processing

Bot Mitigation

CAPTCHA Solving

Compliance Management

Customizable Fields

Customizable Forms

Customizable Reports

Customizable Templates

Customization

Dashboard

Dashboard Creation

Data Aggregation

Data Aggregation and Publishing

Data Capture and Transfer

Data Cleansing

Data Connectors

Data Extraction

Data Import/Export

Data Mapping

Data Mining

Data Security

Data Storage Management

Data Synchronization

Data Transformation

Data Verification

Data Visualization

Data Warehouse

Document Extraction

Email Address Extraction

Forms Management

Geotargeting

HTML Parsing

Image Extraction

Integration Management

Integrations Management

IP Address Extraction

IP Rotation

JavaScript Rendering

Job Scheduling

Machine Learning

Metadata Extraction

Metadata Management

Mobile Access

Mobile App

Multi-Channel Data Collection

Multi-Device Support

Multiple Data Sources

Multiple File Format Support

Natural Language Processing

Offline Response Collection

Optical Character Recognition

Phone Number Extraction

Pre-built Connectors

Pricing Extraction

Proactive Error Detection

Proxy Rotation

Query Builder

Real-Time Data

Reporting/Analytics

Reporting & Statistics

Rules-Based Workflow

Scalability

Scheduling

Search/Filter

Secure Data Storage

Third-Party Integrations

User Management

Version Control

Visual Analytics

Visual Discovery

Web Data Extraction

Website Crawling

Workflow Management

By industry, Apify reviewers are most commonly professionals in information technology and services (18%). The most frequent use case for Apify cited by reviewers is data extraction (70% of reviewers).

Users and use cases

Reviewers appreciate Apify’s pay-per-use model, free tier, and generous trial credits, and they value the inclusion of hosting and scheduling. However, some users say the pricing structure is confusing and report unpredictable costs as usage increases.

Value for money

Apify is a data extraction tool offering key features such as web data extraction, data import/export, and API access, among others.

Open Source

Apify

Web-based

Windows

Linux

Chromebook

Bright Data

PhantomBuster

Browse AI

ScraperAPI

Free

Starter Plan

Scale Plan

Enterprise Custom Plan

PRODUCT

We use it primarily for web scraping, and it integrates seamlessly with Claude (Anthropic's AI) to process and analyze the scraped data.

Aification specialist

It has helped automate repetitive web data collection tasks, especially for competitor ad monitoring and market research, saving hours of manual work while providing reliable, scheduled data.

AI Automation Developer

Beyond that, it's a proper infrastructure platform, not just a scraper: schedules, datasets, key-value stores, proxies, and a clean REST API all sit behind the same account, so wiring it into an agent pipeline is straightforward.

For my projects, the strongest part is that Apify can become a research and data engine: checking websites, marketplaces, trends, competitors, listings, and public signals automatically.

I particularly appreciate the managed infrastructure, scheduling capabilities, API access, dataset management, and seamless integration with AI and automation tools.

Virtual Assistent

It saves me more than 70% of the time I used to spend on repetitive work, improves data accuracy, and allows me to scale my processes effortlessly.

Founder

It has helped me move faster on client projects by giving me a practical way to scrape leads, research companies, and build datasets that can then feed into enrichment, CRM, or outreach workflows.

Product Manager

It significantly simplifies web scraping and automation by handling infrastructure concerns like scaling, proxies, scheduling, and reliability out of the box.

Owner

Apify sits at the core of my data infrastructure — I use it both as a consumer of Store actors and as a developer building my own custom actors for niche data sources that don't expose official APIs.

It removes the need to manage infrastructure like proxies, scaling, scheduling, and reliability, which makes it much faster to build and run production-grade scrapers.

It has helped us move faster, reduce maintenance overhead, and run more stable data pipelines in production. While there are a few areas that could be improved, especially around large-scale workflow management and advanced analytics, the platform overall delivers strong value and has become a key part of our data automation stack.

Director

The marketplace of pre-built scrapers and automations means we can prototype fast, then harden solutions with our own code when the use case proves itself.

Business Developes

I evaluated building custom scraping infrastructure vs. using Apify, and the math was clear — maintaining proxies, handling browser automation at scale, and dealing with anti-bot measures would cost more in development time than Apify's subscription.

It provides access to cheap scrapers developed by independant engineers so you can support them while also getting up to date information at the fraction of the cost of data brokers.

Beyond using existing actors, I can host my own APIs and custom services directly on Apify, which makes it much easier to centralize business logic and keep my entire stack running in one scalable environment.

Product manager

The combination of the massive Apify Store (24,000+ high-quality Actors), powerful Crawlee SDK for custom Node.js/Python solutions, rock-solid residential proxies, and strong anti-bot protection makes it incredibly reliable and efficient.

The combination of automation, infrastructure, scheduling, monitoring, and custom deployment capabilities makes it much more than just a scraping tool—it’s become an operational backbone for our business.

Automation Specialist

I use Playwright Actors, scheduling, datasets, and cloud execution to automate data collection from travel websites. Once everything is configured, it runs reliably and saves many hours of manual work.

Manager

Currently, I am using apify to review the linkedin posts and figure out some automations and we are finding more and more ways to use apify and is really helping in the productivity where our employees are spending no time finding listings, posts, and doing research or creating outreach plan.

Research Assistant

The ready-to-use Actor library covers virtually every major platform and use case, and for custom needs the SDK makes it straightforward to build your own in JavaScript or Python with headless Chrome, Playwright, and Puppeteer pre-configured.

Growth Engineer

I use Apify daily as part of my growth engineering stack — primarily the HarvestAPI LinkedIn actors integrated via MCP into my automation workflows.

Founder, TastePass

The output is clean, consistently structured data that drops straight into my pipeline, and the console makes launching, monitoring and exporting a run straightforward once you know it.

Data Engineer

We use it to build, deploy, manage, and sell scrapers, so it directly supports both our technical workflow and business goals.

First Line Sales Leader

The platform handles complex, dynamic websites well and delivers clean, structured data that integrates smoothly into our analysis and reporting processes. While there’s a learning curve for some technical aspects, the overall value, stability, and time savings make Apify a strong asset in my workflow.

Group CEO

It’s reliable for automating web data collection and has significantly reduced manual work in our research and city guide projects. While there’s a bit of a learning curve for advanced use and some ongoing maintenance is needed, the time savings and scalability make it a strong tool in our stack.

The main drawback is that some advanced features can be challenging for new users to master. While basic scraping tasks are straightforward, building complex workflows involving custom Actors, APIs, webhooks, and large-scale automation requires a deeper understanding of the platform.

The platform has become an important part of several data collection, research, and automation projects by allowing us to gather and process web data efficiently and at scale.

I can confidently run authenticated scrapers knowing the environment is secure, and the data comes out in perfectly clean JSON or CSV formats ready for our database.

Software Developer

Its automation features and ready-to-use tools make it a valuable solution for web scraping, lead generation, and market research projects.

Automation Developer

The platform helped me collect information, automate repetitive tasks, and experiment with automation workflows without managing my own infrastructure.

It lets me pull and enrich lists from multiple platforms like LinkedIn and Instagram, which is huge for my lead gen setup.

Apify eliminates most of the complexity involved in web scraping and data collection, allowing projects to move from concept to production very quickly.

The ready-to-use Actors, reliable cloud execution, and developer-friendly API significantly reduced the time needed to build and maintain web scraping workflows.

Sales Manager

It has successfully bridged the gap between needing complex, scalable web scraping infrastructure and not wanting to build it all from scratch. While there is a slight learning curve when you first start configuring the JSON inputs for specific Actors, the time and money saved in the long run make it incredibly worthwhile.

Researcher

I especially appreciate the flexibility of the platform and the ability to integrate the collected data with other analytical tools that I use regularly in my research.

Apify eliminates much of the complexity involved in web scraping and data collection, allowing projects to move from concept to production very quickly.

Creative director

The platform is flexible, the Actor Store is useful when there is already a scraper for the source I need, and the MCP server is a strong bridge into AI-agent workflows.

It seamlessly handles the heavy lifting of my day-to-day operations, giving me the bandwidth to focus on high-level strategy and scaling.

Intern

It has helped automate tasks that would otherwise require a lot of manual work, especially for monitoring feedback and competitor discussions across multiple social media platforms.

The library of pre-built Actors saves a massive amount of time, and the ability to deploy custom Node.js or Python code directly to the cloud is a developer's dream.

It is strong for information collection, structured inputs and outputs, scheduling, and turning scrapers into products you can actually offer to users.

The pre-built Actor Store covers most common targets out of the box — we had Scout pulling structured listings off freelance boards within an hour of signing up.

I use Apify to automate the collection of travel offers and integrate the results into Telegram workflows.

It has become a foundational tool in our data extraction workflow, particularly for platforms like LinkedIn and X, and their customer support and community have been consistently helpful.

First, usage-based billing needs active watching: costs can climb on big runs, the spend controls are not front and center, and I would prefer a clear cost estimate before a run and spend limits on by default.

Apify is my default tool for any scraping or web data task as an agency; we lean on it for Instagram content research and it's never let us down.

Tasks that previously required manual data gathering or custom-built scraping systems can often be automated in a matter of hours, resulting in substantial productivity gains and a strong return on investment.

The platform is mature in the ways that matter: schedules, run history, dataset storage, and observability all come out of the box.

The actor marketplace is very useful, especially for things like Google Maps scraping, lead sourcing, company research, and LinkedIn-related research.

The best thing is the connection via MCP (I use claude code for that) and the easiness to say a prompt, search between thousands of actors and to get you a good amount of leads.

Web Scraping

Actors

Automation

Among reviewers who comment on Apify's automation, 96% feel positive. Users say Apify streamlines large-scale data extraction, automates repetitive web data collection, and integrates with various platforms. They highlight time savings, reliability, and flexibility. However, some mention a learning curve and limitations in dynamic scheduling for advanced workflows.

Workflow Integration

Security and Access Control

Productivity

Custom Development

Time Savings

Proxy Management

Small Business

Large Enterprises

Mid-size Business

Freelancers

Users think Apify offers good value for money, especially appreciating the pay-per-use model that allows them to only pay for what they use and avoid unnecessary subscriptions. Some reviewers find the platform affordable for small-scale or occasional projects, and they value the inclusion of hosting, scheduling, storage, and execution in one place. Reviewers appreciate the availability of a free tier and generous trial credits, which make it easy to test features before committing to a paid plan. They say the platform is cost-effective for those who use Apify’s maintained agents or community tools, and some users report that discounts for students or NGOs enhance accessibility. Some reviewers feel the pricing is fair for the quality and reliability of results, and they like the flexibility to optimize costs by adjusting usage.

However, some users say the pricing structure is confusing, especially as usage scales or for high-volume projects, making it difficult to predict costs. Reviewers indicate that plan caps and credit-based billing can lead to unexpected charges, and some feel the minimum paid tiers are too high for casual or new users. They report that costs can rise quickly with increased memory, proxy usage, or multiple actors, and they would prefer more transparent pricing, additional pay-as-you-go options, or a cost calculator. Some users say free tier limitations and unclear billing explanations are drawbacks.

Hard to use and slow in execution and above all illegal in the EU !!!

The support is always available and helpful too, which is a major plus.

Apify vs Octoparse Comparison (2026)

Apify

Octoparse

Overview

Video & Screenshots

Pricing

User reviews

Key features

Integrations

Alternatives