Apify Alternatives 2026: Which Scraper to Pick for Each Job

TL;DR

Apify alternatives split by job, not by brand. For very large volumes and proxy-heavy sites look at Bright Data, which charges about $1.50 per 1,000 records. For no-code desktop scraping look at Octoparse, from $69 a month with a limited free plan. For developers who want a scraping API look at ScrapingBee, from $19 a month. For point-and-click monitoring look at Browse AI. For Google Maps only or social lead generation, look at specialists such as Outscraper and PhantomBuster, and compare their prices against your exact job. Stay with Apify when you want ready-made scrapers for popular sites, an API and AI integrations.

Very large volumes: Bright Data, about $1.50 per 1,000 records
No-code desktop: Octoparse, free plan or from $69/month
Developer scraping API: ScrapingBee, from $19/month
Point-and-click monitoring: Browse AI, 50 free credits
Google Maps only: A Maps specialist, compare per-record price
Ready-made scrapers for popular sites: Apify, free plan with $5 of usage

Which one this is: Apify, the web scraping platform at apify.com, and the tools commonly compared with it.

What Are the Main Alternatives to Apify, and What Do They Cost?

The tools below are billed in different units, which is why raw price comparisons mislead. Read the last column before you compare numbers.

Tool	Best for	Free option	Paid from	What you are billed for
Apify	Ready-made scrapers for popular sites, plus custom code, API and AI tools	$5 of usage a month	$19/month	Per result for most Store Actors, or compute units for custom code
Bright Data	Large volumes and sites that need heavy proxy use	5,000 records a month	About $1.50 per 1,000 records	Per record, pay as you go
Octoparse	No-code scraping from a desktop app	Free plan: 10 tasks, local only	$69/month	Subscription, with cloud processes by plan
ScrapingBee	Developers who want a scraping API	1,000 free credits	$19/month	API credits per request
Browse AI	Point-and-click monitoring of a few sites	50 free credits	$19/month billed annually	Credits
Outscraper	Google Maps and other Google data	Check its site	Check its site	Per record
PhantomBuster	Automations for social networks and lead generation	Check its site	Check its site	Time its tools run, not results

Prices for Bright Data, Octoparse, ScrapingBee and Browse AI were read on their pricing pages in September 2026. Outscraper and PhantomBuster are shown without prices on purpose: their pricing could not be confirmed directly for this guide, and quoting third-party numbers would repeat the stale figures that many comparison articles carry.

Which Alternative Fits Your Job?

You only need Google Maps leads

Apify's own Google Maps Scraper costs $4 per 1,000 places on the free plan, $3 on Starter, $2 on Scale and $1.50 on Business, with extras such as contact enrichment charged on top (see our Google Maps Scraper guide). A Maps specialist like Outscraper is worth a quote if Maps is the only thing you will ever scrape. Compare the same job on both: the number of places, whether you need emails, and whether you need reviews.

You want leads from social networks on a schedule

PhantomBuster is built around automations for networks such as LinkedIn and Instagram and bills by the time its tools run. Apify covers Instagram with an official Actor, priced per result (see the Instagram Scraper guide). If you need LinkedIn-style workflows with actions rather than just data collection, that is where a specialist is more natural.

You are not technical and want point-and-click

Octoparse and Browse AI are built for this. Octoparse runs tasks you set up visually on your computer, with a free plan for testing. Browse AI is built around training a robot to watch a page and alert you to changes. Apify can be used without code through its Store, but it assumes you are comfortable with inputs, result limits and cost settings.

You are a developer with your own scraper code

ScrapingBee gives you an API that fetches pages for you, so you keep your parsing code and skip running browsers and proxies yourself. Apify is the other route: deploy your code, for example a Crawlee project, as an Actor and let the platform run and schedule it.

You need very large volumes or hard-to-scrape sites

Bright Data's strength is its proxy network and per-record pricing at scale, about $1.50 per 1,000 records on its web scraper page. At that scale the proxy bill often matters more than the scraper itself: Apify's residential proxy costs $8 per GB on Free and Starter and $7 on Business, so price the traffic, not just the results.

You want web pages as clean text for an AI tool

Apify's Website Content Crawler is popular for this and connects to AI tools through its MCP server, but a dedicated page-to-markdown service can be simpler if that is all you do. Decide by whether you also need scrapers for other sites.

Why Do People Leave Apify?

Reviews of Apify are strongly positive: in September 2026 it rated 4.8 on Capterra and 4.8 on Trustpilot. The complaints that do appear are specific, and they are the reasons to consider an alternative:

Costs are hard to predict for custom crawlers. Capterra reviewers call compute units abstract. This is avoidable: set a result limit and a spending limit on every run.
Quality varies by Actor. Reviewers on Trustpilot and Capterra say community Actors are not always maintained. Choose Actors from Apify or from publishers with many users and recent updates.
A learning curve for people new to scraping, with several billing models to understand.

If the first reason is your worry, a tool with a flat subscription such as Octoparse gives a more predictable bill, at the price of fewer ready-made options. Our guide to what happens when Apify credit runs out explains how to cap spending.

When Is Apify Still the Better Choice?

A popular site already has a maintained scraper in the Store, priced per result, so you can calculate the cost before you run anything.
You want to start free: $5 of usage every month with no credit card covers about 1,250 Google Maps places or about 1,850 Instagram results on the free tier.
You want the data to flow into automations: there is an official n8n node, an API and an MCP server for AI assistants.
You might later build your own scraper and want the same place to run it.

Test Apify On The Free Plan No credit card, cancel nothing

Free Plan • No Credit Card • $5 Of Usage Every Month

How Do You Compare Scraper Costs Fairly?

Write down the job in results. For example, 5,000 Google Maps places, or 600 Instagram posts.
Convert each tool's unit to that job. Per-record tools are simple multiplication. Credit and execution-time tools need a test run to see how many credits or minutes the job uses.
Add proxies and extras. Emails, reviews and residential traffic are often billed separately.
Check what happens at the limit. Does the tool stop, or keep going and bill overage?
Run the same small test everywhere. A 50-result test on the free tier of each tool costs nothing and shows the real output and cost.

For reference, the Apify side of a 5,000-place Google Maps job with no extras is about $15 on Starter, $10 on Scale and $7.50 on Business, at the prices in our Google Maps Scraper guide.

Apify Alternatives: Common Questions

What is the best Apify alternative?

There is no single best one, because the tools solve different jobs. Bright Data suits very large volumes and heavy proxy needs, Octoparse suits no-code desktop scraping, ScrapingBee suits developers who want a scraping API, and a Google Maps specialist suits a Maps-only job. Apify is usually the better choice when a ready-made scraper for a popular site already exists.

Is there a free alternative to Apify?

Several tools have free tiers: Octoparse has a free plan limited to 10 tasks that run on your own computer, Bright Data offers 5,000 records a month free, and ScrapingBee and Browse AI give a small number of free credits. Apify's own free plan includes $5 of usage every month with no credit card. Crawlee, Apify's open-source library, is free if you can write code.

Is there a cheaper alternative to Apify for Google Maps?

It depends on volume and plan. Apify's Google Maps Scraper costs $4 per 1,000 places on the free plan, $3 on Starter, $2 on Scale and $1.50 on Business. Other Maps specialists price per record or per query, so ask each for a quote on your exact job and compare it with those numbers, including any extras such as emails or reviews.

Is Apify better than Octoparse?

They fit different people. Octoparse is a no-code desktop tool built around point-and-click tasks at a fixed subscription price, which suits non-technical users scraping a few sites. Apify has a Store of ready-made scrapers billed per result, an API and integrations, which suits automations and popular sites, but its billing takes longer to understand.

Can I use Apify and another scraper together?

Yes. Many teams use a ready-made Apify Actor for common sites and a separate tool for a site Apify does not cover well. Nothing locks you in: results export as CSV, Excel or JSON, so the data can be combined downstream.

Why do people leave Apify?

The most common reasons in public reviews are costs that are hard to predict for custom crawlers, community Actors of uneven quality that break when a site changes, and a learning curve for people new to scraping. Reviews of popular, maintained Actors are usually positive.

Which Apify Alternative Should You Choose, in One Paragraph?

Choose by job. Go to Bright Data for very large volumes, Octoparse for no-code desktop scraping, ScrapingBee if you write the parsing code yourself, Browse AI for simple page monitoring, and a Maps or social specialist if that is all you do. Stay with Apify when a maintained, per-result Actor exists for your site, when you want a free start, and when you need the data in automations. Whatever you pick, run the same 50-result test first and set a spending limit.

How this was assessed: this page is based on Apify's official pricing and product pages, its terms, public ratings on review platforms and the pages that currently rank for these searches, all read in September 2026. Competitor prices were read on their pricing pages; where a price could not be confirmed directly, this guide leaves it out. It is not a report from inside a paid account, and it does not claim to be.

What Other Tools Have We Covered?

All tool guides

About the author

Carlos D.

I have worked in affiliate marketing since 2020, mostly on global product launches: the coordinated releases where a program opens for a fixed window and partners drive registrations and sales. Across those launches I have generated more than $1 million in tracked sales as an affiliate.

That is the lens these reviews are written through. I read the official pages and partner terms before writing, I cover programs I am a partner for, and I say so in the footer of every page. More about how these reviews are made.

These were our results. Your results will vary based on a variety of factors, including your education, effort, and market factors. There is no guarantee you will make any money.

This is an independent guide. It is not the official Apify website and it is not operated by, affiliated with or endorsed by Apify. Product names are trademarks of their respective owners. We may earn a commission from sign-ups and purchases made through links on this page, at no extra cost to you. The alternatives on this page are linked without any affiliate relationship, so we earn nothing from them. Prices and plans were checked on the official pages in September 2026 and can change at any time: confirm them at checkout.

Apify Alternatives: Which Scraper to Pick for Each Job