Best Apify alternatives in 2026
8 direct alternatives to Apify, compared on pricing, features, and best-for use cases. Pick the right replacement without the marketing fluff.
Curated by Louis Corneloup · Updated Cite this list: Toolradar, best Apify alternatives 2026, toolradar.com/alternatives/apify
Why people consider alternatives to Apify
Apify is a web scraping and automation platform that enables developers to build, run, and scale data extraction workflows.
Here are the real cost and limitation gotchas that push teams to look elsewhere:
- Platform credits are consumed by compute (Actor runs), storage (datasets, key-value stores), and proxy bandwidth, all three meters run simultaneously
- Residential proxy traffic costs significantly more credits per GB than datacenter proxies, scraping sites with aggressive bot detection drains credits fast
- Actor compute is billed per compute unit (1 CU = 1 GB RAM x 1 hour). Browser-based scrapers (Puppeteer/Playwright) use 4-10x more CUs than HTTP-based ones
- Storage costs accumulate if you do not clean up datasets, old crawl results are retained and billed until deleted
The 8 alternatives below cover the same core job (developer tools) with different trade-offs.
8 alternatives to Apify
Ranked by G2 and Capterra ratings, media mentions, and editor review, plus how directly they replace Apify.
- 1
Decodo (formerly Smartproxy)
PaidScale web data collection with diverse proxies and AI-powered scraping
4.6 /5 on G2 · 687 ratings, Aug 2026
- 2
Bright Data
PaidUnlock any website for large-scale, reliable web data collection
4.6 /5 on G2 · 346 ratings, Sep 2026
- 3
ScrapingBee
Free planThe best web scraping API to avoid getting blocked, with AI-powered data extraction and headless browser management.
4.8 /5 on G2 · 29 ratings, Sep 2026
- 4
Playwright
100% freeAutomate modern web testing across browsers with auto-waiting
4.7 /5 on G2 · 14 ratings, Aug 2026
- 5
H Company
Free planAutomate complex web and enterprise tasks with AI agents
- 6
Puppeteer
100% freeControl headless Chrome for testing, screenshots, and crawling
- 7
AgentQuartz
100% freeBuild, deploy, and manage autonomous AI agents for complex workflows
- 8
Scrapy
Free planThe world's most-used open-source framework for fast and powerful web data extraction.
Frequently asked questions
What is the best alternative to Apify?
Based on real-signal scoring (G2 and Capterra ratings, media mentions, and editorial review), the top alternatives to Apify are Decodo (formerly Smartproxy), Bright Data, ScrapingBee. Each solves the same core job with different trade-offs on pricing, features, and integrations.
Is there a free alternative to Apify?
Yes. Playwright is 100% free (no paid upgrade path) (Automate modern web testing across browsers with auto-waiting). Freemium tools on this list offer a free tier with paid upgrades; they are not the same as fully free.
Why do people look for Apify alternatives?
Common reasons teams switch away from Apify: pricing that scales aggressively, missing integrations with the rest of their stack, performance or scale limits, or a specific feature gap in developer tools. The alternatives on this page solve the same core problem with different trade-offs.
Side-by-side comparisons
In-depth comparison pages for Apify versus each alternative.
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