Apify Review: Build, Fast and Reliable Web Scrapers

Apify Review: Build, Fast and Reliable Web Scrapers

Want to create reliable web scrapers fast? 

Get started with Apify, which is a platform that enables developers to create, implement, and publish online scraping data extraction, and web automation technologies.

Apify was founded in 2015 by Jan Čurn and Jakub Balada. The initial concept was to make it simple for developers to construct versatile and scalable web crawlers. Which uses only front-end JavaScript, owing to the then-new headless browser technology.

In 2016, the team gained a seed investment and began establishing a business around its invention. They quickly realized that clients’ use cases require more than just a simple JavaScript crawler.

So they set out to create the most adaptable full-stack platform for web scraping and browser automation.

apify home page

It gives easy access to compute instances (Actors), handy request and result storages, proxies, scheduling, webhooks and more – all accessible through the Console web interface, Apify’s API, or JavaScript and Python API clients.

Apify Store offers over 1,500 ready-made web scrapers and automation tools meant exclusively for data extraction, or users can create their own using Python/JavaScript code templates, Scrapy, or Crawlee.

Apify can be used for:

a. Web Scraping: Crawl millions of websites to gather data for market research, competitor tracking, and product creation in formats such as Excel, CSV, or JSON.

b. Web Automation: Automate manual web workflows and processes, such as form filling or file uploading. Allow robots to perform the grunt job and scale up.

c. Web Integrations: Connect online services and APIs, and allow data to flow between them. More complex workflows can include customized computing and data processing elements.

Product

1. Apify Store

apify store

A marketplace where a user can find 1500+ ready-to-use actors for their web scraping or automation projects. Also, users can create and publish their own.

It includes a variety of sources, such as social media, AI, Automation, E-commerce, Business, Marketing, SEO tools Lead generation, Jobs, and much more.

Features

  • It offers many pre-built actors for scraping tasks and automation projects.
  • General-purpose Actors can help users develop a customized web scraping, crawling, or automation solution for their project.
  • Actors in the shop are version-controlled, allowing users to select specific versions or always use the most recent.

2. Apify Actors

apify actors

Apify’s main component is its actors. Actors are serverless cloud programs that perform computational tasks using the Apify platform. They are called Actors because, like human actors, they follow a script when performing their activities.

They can carry out anything from simple tasks (like filling out a web form or sending an email) to complex processes (like exploring a complete website or removing duplicates from a huge dataset). Actor runs might be as brief or as long as required. They may last seconds, hours, or even infinity.

Features

  • Apify Actors can do time-consuming tasks that are beyond the lifespan of a single HTTP transaction.
  • Join hundreds of developers who publish their Actors on the Apify Store and make money by developing.
  • Actors may simply create a user interface for the input configuration.
  • Users can make use of lower-level features and settings, or use their API to execute Actors.
  • With a few simple instructions, users can deploy their scrapy code to the cloud.
  • They can transform their scrapy creations into Actors by running, scheduling, monitoring, and monetizing them.

3. Apify Integrations

apify integrations

Apify offers a complete API that enables users to interact with the platform programmatically.

Users can connect with  Apify Actors and tasks to their favorite online apps and cloud services, get automated email notifications, and take their process automation to the next level.

Features

  • API: A RESTful API allows users to connect to almost any other cloud or local service.  A user can control nearly every aspect of the Apify platform.
  • Webhooks: Webhooks enable users to configure the Apify platform to take action when a certain system event happens. Users can use them to start another Actor when the current run is completed or fails.
  • Github: Users can connect Apify to their GitHub account and it will automatically generate a new issue in their project if an Actor run fails.

4. Apify Enterprise

apify enterprise

Apify Enterprise is Apify’s enterprise-grade service, designed to address the demands of large organizations with premium, customized web scraping solutions, and expert services for mission-critical tasks.

Features

  • The Service Level Agreement (SLA) is project insurance that includes agreed-upon deliverables, automatic monitoring, problem response times, and a customized maintenance package.
  • The Apify platform and solutions are readily scalable to hundreds of millions of web pages per month and gigabytes of data processing.
  • Apify eliminates the risk of users’ data pipelines running empty.
  • They will provide clean and organized data and respond quickly to any concerns that affect the quality of users’ datasets.
  • It’s powerful automatic monitoring tools ensure that mistakes and website updates are detected as soon as they occur.
  • Users will get an NDA, and information about their projects and data will never be shared with third parties.
  • Users will always have total control over their data and solutions.
  • The in-house legal staff also provides help for fully managed projects.
  • Extracted data is provided in JSON, CSV, Excel, and XML formats.
  • Apify may be simply integrated into your existing processes with Zapier, Make, and other ready-made connectors.
  • Users may also create custom integrations with the Apify API and webhooks.
  • Apify is an open platform, which means users can own the code.
  • This makes it simple to onboard the technical staff, allowing businesses to maintain complete control over the ideas and develop them internally.
  • A specialized team of world-class professionals will collaborate closely with users to complete and manage their projects.

5. Apify Proxy

apify proxy

Apify Proxy is designed to optimize the speed of web scrapers by intelligently switching data center and residential IP addresses.

Proxies not only avoid blocking, but they also allow users to access content that may differ depending on their location. Users can combine this with smart proxy rotation to take their scraping to the next level.

Proxies are an important aspect of the Apify platform’s ecology, and they are simple to set up and use for any Actor. One can simply track proxy sessions to keep track of the usage and expenses.

Features

  • Without having to install self-signed certificates, users can securely browse websites protected by SSL/TLS.
  • Apify Proxy periodically verifies that all IP addresses are operating on specified target websites to decrease mistake rates.
  • Apify Proxy is accessible by a single hostname, making it easy to use from any HTTP proxy-enabled application.
  • Easily trace which domains and websites were accessed by the proxy, as well as the amount of data obtained.
  • Select any nation for home IP addresses to access country-specific versions of target websites.
  • Retain the same IP address over an extended period, such as when doing tasks after login.

6. Apify Storage

apify storage

Apify Storage is a scalable and dependable cloud data storage optimized for web scraping and automation tasks. These storage options are built right into the platform, making it simple to manage and retrieve the information collected by the actors. It offers the following benefits:

  • Whether you have a few records or a few hundred million, the latency and dependability will remain the same. They use Amazon Web Services for the underlying data storage, which ensures excellent availability and peace of mind.
  • Apify offers low-cost storage that has been carefully developed to handle the huge workloads associated with web scraping and crawling operations.
  • Data may be accessed online, allowing you to quickly evaluate and share it with others. The Apify API and SDK make it simple to incorporate your storage into your applications.

Features

  • Datasets

Apify allows users to save results from web scraping, crawling, and data processing operations as datasets. These datasets may be exported in a variety of forms, including JSON, CSV, XML, RSS, Excel, and HTML.

  • Request Queue

The request queue allows users to keep track of a list of web page URLs. It allows them to recursively explore websites, starting with the original URLs and adding new links as they are identified while avoiding duplication.

  •  Key-Value Store 

Apify allows users to store arbitrary data records together with their MIME content type. These documents are available under unique names and may be viewed and written quickly.

Use Cases

1. Data for Generative AI

Data is the fuel for AI, and the web is the most abundant source of data ever generated. Today’s most popular language models, such as ChatGPT and LLaMA, were all trained using data scraped from the internet. Apify provides users with the same skills and puts huge amounts of data from the web at your fingertips.

2. Lead Generation

Web scraping is essential for those who want to automate the collection of contact information from potential prospects. Apify’s multiple features allow users to easily automate lead generation by gathering email addresses, phone numbers, and other contact information from websites.

3. Machine Learning

Web scraping has made it much easier to collect big training datasets from the web, however the more complicated the AI, the larger the dataset required. To collect different data from a variety of sources, one needs scalable web scrapers. Apify provides the tools and knowledge to help users access the information they need quickly.

4. Market Research

Users can monitor and analyze the competitors’ websites, social media profiles, and pricing tactics. They can use the collected data to gain a better understanding of their strengths and shortcomings, uncover market gaps, and devise ways to differentiate themselves from competitors. Even if they are just getting started, benchmarking against industry leaders may give useful insights on how to enhance the products, services, and marketing.

5. Price Comparison

By using Apify’s ready-made data extraction and automation solutions, one can effortlessly monitor thousands of e-commerce sites throughout the internet. Match appropriate item capabilities and adapt the price plan based on competition data – track how their product prices and availability fluctuate over time and receive notifications when a big change happens.

6. Product Development

Apify provides ready-made scrapers and automation tools for simply extracting data to help businesses optimize their product strategy. The Actors (as we call them) may also be incorporated and scaled to become a component within the growing solution. The options are limitless.

7. Robotic Process Automation

Robotic Process Automation (RPA) automates repetitive, digital data-driven operations that they would prefer to outsource rather than complete ourselves. While traditional RPA focuses on desktop apps, online RPA is all about browsers. Apify provides the tools and experience to help businesses automate web browsers and outsource difficult, digital data-driven activities to bots to optimize business processes and boost speed and efficiency.

8. Sentiment Analysis

Sentiment analysis, which combines natural language processing, machine learning, and computational linguistics, is used to identify the overall tone of any piece of text, as well as tone metrics like intensity, polarity, and main issues. One can use Apify’s tools and expertise to collect online data at scale and analyze sentiment across sectors and use cases.

9. Universal Web scrapers

A collection of generic, universal scrapers designed for various libraries, browsers, and frameworks. If a user is creating a browser automation tool or a dynamic page with JavaScript rendering, they can use Web Scraper, Puppeteer, or Playwright Scraper. A user just has to submit an HTTP request and receive HTML, less resource-intensive scrapers such as Cheerio, Vanilla JS, or JSDOM will be enough.

10. Product Matching AI

To keep track of e-commerce websites, use all-in-one product-matching RPA. A must-have for market research, competitor analysis, and automated price intelligence.

Pricing

apify pricing

Apify is a flexible platform with flexible pricing options. Their pricing starts with a free plan which includes $5 of free usage.

Users can create their scrapers from scratch or use one of the Apify Store’s pre-built online scrapers and web automation solutions. They can upgrade their membership or request a bespoke solution at any moment.

Reviews

1. G2

apify review
apify review

2. Capterra

apify review

Final Thoughts

Apify is the world’s greatest cloud platform for designing and running web scraping applications.

Its user-friendly interface, extensive feature set, and solid infrastructure make it a fantastic solution for anybody wishing to easily collect data from the web.

While customizing scrapers involves some understanding, the platform’s important documentation and support resources make the process easier.