8 Best Apify Alternatives (2026)

The closest alternatives to Apify are Airtop, Anchor Browser, Bright Data Browser API and Browserbase, with 4 more below. Each shares a comparison category with it, so every rationale here names both tools' real values. Apify is marked No on CDP endpoint, where Browserbase records Yes, usually where a switch starts.

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Why do people look for Apify alternatives?

Most people searching for Apify alternatives are not shopping, they already run it and something has stopped fitting.
That something is usually a specific number rather than a feeling.
This page starts from the fields where Apify genuinely trails the rosters it appears in, and only then covers the reasons that never show up in a table.

The measured reasons.

CDP endpoint, No. Browserbase records Yes.
Session replay, No. Browserbase records Yes.
Human handoff, No. Browserless records Yes.
Pricing model, per-credit, 9th of 13. Browserbase records per-hour.

Any one of those is enough on its own if you sized your architecture around it.
None of them is enough if you didn't, which is why the list is short and specific rather than a general case against Apify.

The reasons that never make it into a table.

A price rise after a funding round.
A licence change that turns a self-host into a subscription.
A region you now need and they do not have.
An acquisition.
A support experience that quietly degrades.
None of those are fields, and all of them move teams, which is why every entry below links back to Browser APIs, where the full field set and its sources live.
The ones we catch get logged on the Apify timeline.

How the shortlist is ordered.

Every tool below shares at least one comparison category with Apify, sorted by how many categories the two overlap in.
There is no editorial ranking, no sponsorship and no affiliate link, the order is the overlap count.
The rationale under each is generated from the two tools' own cells, so it names real values rather than adjectives.

1.Airtop

Airtop, Natural-language browser API, describe the page, skip the selectors.
It meets Apify in Browser APIs.
It is ahead on Human handoff (Yes against No), CDP endpoint (Partial against No) and Launched (2024 against 2015).
What you give up: Open-source core (No, where Apify records Partial) and File downloads (Partial, where Apify records Yes).
Best for extraction from sites whose DOM changes constantly.
The highest-level abstraction here: structured data without selectors, a real productivity gain and a real lock-in.

Where Airtop and Apify actually differ

Human handoff: YesApify: No
CDP endpoint: PartialApify: No
Launched: 2024Apify: 2015
Session replay: PartialApify: No
Pricing model: per-hourApify: per-credit
Open-source core: NoApify: Partial

Airtop profile Compare in Browser APIs

2.Anchor Browser

Anchor Browser, Cloud browsers built around authenticated sessions and human takeover.
It meets Apify in Browser APIs.
It is ahead on CDP endpoint (Yes against No), Session replay (Yes against No) and Human handoff (Yes against No).
What you give up: Open-source core (No, where Apify records Partial) and Funding stage (seed, where Apify records series-a).
Best for agents operating inside authenticated SaaS dashboards.
The best answer when your agent's blocker is a login wall rather than a bot wall.

Where Anchor Browser and Apify actually differ

CDP endpoint: YesApify: No
Session replay: YesApify: No
Human handoff: YesApify: No
Launched: 2024Apify: 2015
Pricing model: per-hourApify: per-credit
Open-source core: NoApify: Partial

Anchor Browser profile Compare in Browser APIs

3.Bright Data Browser API

Bright Data Browser API, CDP browsers on a 70M+ residential IP network with challenge handling built in.
It meets Apify in Browser APIs.
It is ahead on CDP endpoint (Yes against No), Session replay (Partial against No) and Launched (2023 against 2015).
What you give up: Agent API (No, where Apify records Partial) and Open-source core (No, where Apify records Partial).
Best for hard commercial targets behind enterprise bot management.
When the target genuinely fights back, this keeps working, but the developer experience is bare and per-GB punishes.

Where Bright Data Browser API and Apify actually differ

CDP endpoint: YesApify: No
Agent API: NoApify: Partial
Session replay: PartialApify: No
Launched: 2023Apify: 2015
Open-source core: NoApify: Partial
CAPTCHA solving: YesApify: Partial

Bright Data Browser API profile Compare in Browser APIs

4.Browserbase

Browserbase, Managed headless browsers for AI agents, with Stagehand as the SDK.
It meets Apify in Browser APIs.
It is ahead on CDP endpoint (Yes against No), Session replay (Yes against No) and Launched (2024 against 2015).
What you give up: Open-source core (No, where Apify records Partial).
Best for agents that need to stay logged in across runs.
The most complete developer surface for agent work, and the one to beat, but you pay a premium.

Where Browserbase and Apify actually differ

CDP endpoint: YesApify: No
Session replay: YesApify: No
Launched: 2024Apify: 2015
Human handoff: PartialApify: No
Pricing model: per-hourApify: per-credit
Open-source core: NoApify: Partial

Browserbase profile Compare in Browser APIs

5.Browserless

Browserless, Self-hostable headless Chrome service; BrowserQL for bot-heavy sites.
It meets Apify in Browser APIs.
It is ahead on CDP endpoint (Yes against No), Human handoff (Yes against No) and Session replay (Partial against No).
What you give up: Agent API (No, where Apify records Partial) and Free tier (Partial, where Apify records Yes).
Best for teams that expect to self-host eventually.
The pragmatic choice when you may bring everything in-house later, though BrowserQL and the classic API diverge.

Where Browserless and Apify actually differ

CDP endpoint: YesApify: No
Human handoff: YesApify: No
Agent API: NoApify: Partial
Session replay: PartialApify: No
Pricing model: per-hourApify: per-credit
CAPTCHA solving: YesApify: Partial

Browserless profile Compare in Browser APIs

6.Cloudflare Browser Rendering

Cloudflare Browser Rendering, Puppeteer and Playwright bindings for Workers, plus REST render endpoints.
It meets Apify in Browser APIs.
It is ahead on CDP endpoint (Partial against No), Funding stage (public against series-a) and Launched (2023 against 2015).
What you give up: Stealth mode (No, where Apify records Yes) and Live view (No, where Apify records Yes).
Best for screenshots, PDFs and markdown extraction at scale.
Unbeatable for rendering pages that aren't fighting you, especially on Workers, but never an unblocking product.

Where Cloudflare Browser Rendering and Apify actually differ

Stealth mode: NoApify: Yes
Live view: NoApify: Yes
Residential proxy: noneApify: metered-extra
CDP endpoint: PartialApify: No
CAPTCHA solving: NoApify: Partial
Agent API: NoApify: Partial

Cloudflare Browser Rendering profile Compare in Browser APIs

7.Hyperbrowser

Hyperbrowser, Agent-first browsers with hosted scrape, crawl and CUA endpoints.
It meets Apify in Browser APIs.
It is ahead on CDP endpoint (Yes against No), Launched (2024 against 2015) and Session replay (Partial against No).
What you give up: Open-source core (No, where Apify records Partial) and Funding stage (seed, where Apify records series-a).
Best for shipping an agent this week without wiring five services.
Does more per API call than anyone here; great for shipping fast, wrong for a stable primitive.

Where Hyperbrowser and Apify actually differ

CDP endpoint: YesApify: No
Launched: 2024Apify: 2015
Session replay: PartialApify: No
Human handoff: PartialApify: No
Pricing model: per-hourApify: per-credit
Open-source core: NoApify: Partial

Hyperbrowser profile Compare in Browser APIs

8.Kernel

Kernel, Fast-starting browsers plus a runtime for deploying browser agents.
It meets Apify in Browser APIs.
It is ahead on CDP endpoint (Yes against No), Session replay (Yes against No) and Launched (2024 against 2015).
What you give up: Funding stage (seed, where Apify records series-a).
Best for latency-sensitive agent loops with chatty CDP traffic.
Collapses the network hop by running your agent next to the browser, but you adopt their deployment model.

Where Kernel and Apify actually differ

CDP endpoint: YesApify: No
Session replay: YesApify: No
Launched: 2024Apify: 2015
Human handoff: PartialApify: No
Pricing model: per-hourApify: per-credit
Session persistence: YesApify: Partial

Kernel profile Compare in Browser APIs

How this list was built

There is no editorial ranking on this page and no sponsorship behind it. The order is mechanical: every tool that shares a comparison category with Apify, sorted by how many categories the two overlap in. A tool that meets Apify in three rosters sits above one that meets it in a single roster, because more overlap means the comparison is more like-for-like.

The rationale under each entry is composed from the two tools' own cells. Where they differ on a field we score, the sentence names both values and the unit. Where they don't differ, it says so instead of manufacturing a distinction, which is why some entries are short.

Values, sources and verification dates all live on the category tables: Browser APIs. If a figure here disagrees with a vendor's current pricing page, the vendor is right and we are stale.

Still deciding whether to move at all? The Apify profile has the when-to-use and when-not-to-use blocks, and the Apify timeline has the dated changes that usually trigger a migration.