# Apify Apify is a marketplace and platform for running web-scraping and browser-automation tools, called Actors. It helps developers and teams collect live web data, feed AI and data workflows, automate browser tasks, and connect runs to external tools. - Findings24: - Website: - Pricing: Freemium - Categories: AI Browser Automation, AI Web Scraper ## What is Apify? Apify is a marketplace of ready-to-run web-scraping and browser-automation tools, called Actors, plus a platform for building and deploying custom Actors. It turns live web content and browser-based tasks into structured data and repeatable workflows for AI, research, automation, and business intelligence. Users can choose an Actor from the marketplace or build one with code templates and guides. Runs can be exported, scheduled, monitored, or invoked through an API. Apify also provides connections for AI agents through MCP, CLI, and Skills, and supports development with JavaScript and Python alongside libraries such as Crawlee, Playwright, Puppeteer, Selenium, Scrapy, and BeautifulSoup. The platform covers data collection from social networks, maps, websites, and e-commerce sites, as well as browser-based process automation. It offers free and paid plans, usage-based platform charges, proxy and storage services, custom Actor development, and an Actor Store for publishing tools. ## What can Apify do? ### Ready-to-run Actor marketplace Browse tools for tasks such as scraping TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Google Maps, websites, and e-commerce sites. Actors can be selected for a specific data-collection or automation job without building the workflow from scratch. ### Build and deploy custom Actors Start from JavaScript, TypeScript, or Python templates and use Apify guides to create custom web-scraping and browser-automation tools. The platform supports Crawlee, Playwright, Puppeteer, Selenium, Scrapy, and BeautifulSoup. ### API, scheduling, and run monitoring Marketplace examples can be run through an API, scheduled, monitored, and exported. This supports repeatable collection workflows rather than one-off manual browsing. ### AI-agent connectivity Connect AI agents to Apify through MCP, CLI, or Skills. Website content can be crawled and prepared for AI models, LLM applications, vector databases, and RAG pipelines. ### Web data infrastructure Apify provides cloud deployment, monitoring, data processing, proxies, and unblocking services for Actors. Its own materials also describe automatic scaling of infrastructure as published Actors gain users. ### Actor publishing and custom services Creators can publish Actors in the Apify Store, where customers pay for computing resources. Organizations can also request custom Actors built and maintained by Apify experts. ## Use Cases ### AI and RAG data preparation Crawl customer or public websites, clean the HTML, and produce formatted content for chatbots, LLM applications, vector databases, or retrieval-augmented generation pipelines. ### E-commerce and competitor monitoring Collect product and price information across retail websites to compare offerings, watch price changes, and support pricing or market-analysis workflows. ### Lead generation and local market research Extract structured business information from Google Maps and other web sources, including location and contact-related details where available, for discovery and outreach research. ### Social media intelligence Gather posts, profiles, hashtags, comments, engagement metrics, videos, and related metadata from supported social platforms to study audiences, content, brands, or influencers. ### Browser-based process automation Automate repeatable tasks that can be performed in a browser, including report generation, content aggregation, and other robotic process automation workflows. ## Frequently Asked Questions ### What is an Actor in Apify? An Actor is a web-scraping, browser-automation, or other online-data tool that can be run on the Apify platform. Users can select ready-made Actors from the Store or build and publish their own. ### How can an Actor be run or connected to another workflow? The site states that Actors can be run through an API, scheduled, monitored, and integrated with other tools. AI agents can connect through MCP, CLI, or Skills. ### Can Apify be used without building a scraper? Yes. The Apify Store provides ready-to-run tools for tasks such as website crawling, social-media extraction, Google Maps data collection, and e-commerce scraping. Custom development is available when a suitable Actor is not available. ### Does Apify have a free plan? Yes. The free plan costs $0, requires no credit card, and includes a limited amount of platform usage. The pricing page says usage credits expire at the end of the billing cycle and that access can be blocked until the next cycle if free-plan usage is exceeded. ### How is Apify usage priced? Plans combine subscription or prepaid usage with pay-as-you-go platform charges. Depending on the service and Actor, charges can involve compute units, storage, data transfer, proxies, or pay-per-event and pay-per-usage Store pricing. The exact cost depends on the Actor and its run. ## Quick Facts - **Product type**: Web data collection, browser automation, and Actor marketplace - **Primary users**: Developers, data and AI teams, researchers, marketers, and automation users - **Core workflow**: Choose or build an Actor, run it in the cloud, then export or integrate the results - **Supported development**: JavaScript, TypeScript, and Python; Crawlee, Playwright, Puppeteer, Selenium, Scrapy, and BeautifulSoup - **Agent access**: MCP, CLI, and Skills - **Pricing model**: Free plan, paid plans with usage charges, and custom plans