--- title: Apify slug: apify url: "https://toolweight.com/options/apify" homepage: "https://apify.com" categories: browser-automation-apis last_verified: 2026-07-01 license: CC-BY-4.0 --- # Apify > Actor platform for scraping and agents, with Crawlee as the open-source core Apify is a compute platform where scrapers run as containerised Actors, billed in compute units, with a marketplace of thousands of prebuilt ones. Crawlee, its open-source crawler library, is the piece most engineers use directly and handles browser pooling, session rotation and fingerprinting. You do not get a CDP endpoint to connect to from outside, you deploy code that runs browsers inside the platform. ## Identity | | | | --- | --- | | Name | Apify | | Company | Apify Technologies | | One-liner | Actor platform for scraping and agents, with Crawlee as the open-source core | | Site | https://apify.com | | Docs | https://docs.apify.com | | Repo | https://github.com/apify/crawlee | | Founded | 2015 | | Funding | Series A | | Open source | Yes | | Licence | Apache-2.0 | | Brand | https://toolweight.com/vendors/Apify | | Compared in | 1 | ## Where it is compared ### [Browser APIs](https://toolweight.com/compare/browser-automation-apis) Ranked **#9 of 13** on default weights. | Field | Value | Confidence | Verified | Source | Note | | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | --- | | Anti-bot pass rate | - | Unknown | - | - | Panel not yet run. | | Stealth mode | ● | Vendor-claimed | 2026-07-01 | https://docs.apify.com | Crawlee's fingerprint suite and session pool, plus stealth-oriented Actors. | | CAPTCHA solving | ◐ | Inferred | - | - | Community Actors and third-party integrations rather than a platform primitive. | | Residential proxy | metered-extra | Vendor-claimed | 2026-07-01 | https://docs.apify.com/proxy/residential-proxy | Apify Proxy residential tier billed per GB. | | Cold start | - | Unknown | - | - | - | | CDP endpoint | ○ | Inferred | - | - | You deploy code that runs browsers inside Actors; there is no external CDP URL to attach to. | | Playwright | ● | Vendor-claimed | 2026-07-01 | https://docs.apify.com/sdk/js/docs/guides/playwright-crawler | - | | Puppeteer | ● | Vendor-claimed | 2026-07-01 | https://docs.apify.com/sdk/js/docs/guides/puppeteer-crawler | - | | Session persistence | ◐ | Inferred | - | - | Session pool plus key-value stores; you build the persistence yourself. | | Live view | ● | Inferred | - | - | Actor runs expose a live view tab while running. | | Session replay | ○ | Inferred | - | - | Logs and datasets, not replays. | | Max concurrency | - | Unknown | - | - | Governed by the plan's memory quota rather than a session count. | | File downloads | ● | Inferred | - | - | Land in the key-value store. | | Chrome extensions | ◐ | Inferred | - | - | - | | Browser regions | us-east, eu-central | Inferred | - | - | US and EU platform regions; no AU. | | Agent API | ◐ | Inferred | - | - | Agent Actors exist in the store; the platform itself is not an agent loop. | | MCP server | ● | Vendor-claimed | 2026-07-01 | https://github.com/apify/apify-mcp-server | Exposes the Actor store to MCP clients. | | Human handoff | ○ | Inferred | - | - | - | | Pricing model | per-credit | Inferred | - | - | Monthly plan floor plus compute units; from roughly US$49/mo on the entry tier. | | Per browser-hour | - | Unknown | - | - | Compute units bundle CPU and RAM, so an hourly browser rate depends on your Actor's memory setting. | | Free tier | ● | Vendor-claimed | 2026-07-01 | https://apify.com/pricing | Small monthly usage credit. | | GitHub stars | 17,000 | Inferred | - | - | Crawlee repo, rounded. | | Funding stage | series-a | Community-reported | - | - | - | | Open-source core | ◐ | Inferred | - | - | Crawlee is Apache-2.0; the platform is not self-hostable. | | Positioning | Cloud platform for web scraping and browser automation Actors | Inferred | - | - | - | | Launched | 2015 | Inferred | - | - | - | **Verdict.** Not really a browser API and shouldn't be evaluated as one, it is a place to run scraping code, with a marketplace attached. Crawlee is excellent and free. Choose Apify when the job is a scheduled pipeline with storage and monitoring, not when an agent needs a browser right now. ## Alternatives - [Airtop](https://toolweight.com/options/airtop), Natural-language browser API, describe the page, skip the selectors - [Anchor Browser](https://toolweight.com/options/anchor-browser), Cloud browsers built around authenticated sessions and human takeover - [Bright Data Browser API](https://toolweight.com/options/bright-data-browser-api), CDP browsers on a 70M+ residential IP network with challenge handling built in - [Browserbase](https://toolweight.com/options/browserbase), Managed headless browsers for AI agents, with Stagehand as the SDK - [Browserless](https://toolweight.com/options/browserless), Self-hostable headless Chrome service; BrowserQL for bot-heavy sites - [Cloudflare Browser Rendering](https://toolweight.com/options/cloudflare-browser-rendering), Puppeteer and Playwright bindings for Workers, plus REST render endpoints - [Hyperbrowser](https://toolweight.com/options/hyperbrowser), Agent-first browsers with hosted scrape, crawl and CUA endpoints - [Kernel](https://toolweight.com/options/kernel), Fast-starting browsers plus a runtime for deploying browser agents - [Self-hosted Playwright](https://toolweight.com/options/playwright-self-hosted), The baseline: run Chromium in your own container and own everything - [ScrapingBee](https://toolweight.com/options/scrapingbee), One-call HTML API with JavaScript rendering and premium proxy tiers - [Steel.dev](https://toolweight.com/options/steel-dev), Open-source browser API for AI agents, hosted or self-run - [ZenRows](https://toolweight.com/options/zenrows), Scraper API plus a CDP scraping browser on a shared residential pool ## Licence and attribution Data from toolweight (https://toolweight.com), licensed CC-BY-4.0. - Licence: [CC-BY-4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) - Canonical HTML: https://toolweight.com/options/apify - Machine-readable: https://toolweight.com/options/apify.md · https://toolweight.com/api/v1 · https://toolweight.com/mcp - toolweight takes no affiliate revenue and sells no placements. Corrections: https://toolweight.com/suggest