Apify Reviews

“Powerful scraper deployment toolkit”

Pros

Apify makes deploying and managing scrapers much more practical. It is especially strong when it comes to data collection organized inputs and outputs, scheduling and turning scrapers into real products you can offer to users. The interface is also decent overall and once you get familiar with it, the platform seems quite advanced for this field. It also offers good value for the money when you are seriously using it to build and sell scrapers.

Cons

There is still a learning curve, particularly around packaging scrapers properly for the platform and debugging things when they break. Certain bugs or runtime problems can take a while to track down and the platform may feel a bit technical for newer users. I'd also like clearer cost visibility and simpler troubleshooting in a few areas.

“Valuable data for pricing insights”

Pros

It has been proven really useful for scraping real estate listings and hotel prices. It gives me valuable data that I can rely on for other services and to make better business decisions.

Cons

At times the process is too slow. Some scrapes can take 2 or even 3 minutes and that ends up slowing down the whole automation. It would be much better if the platform could run faster.

“YouTube scraping time saver”

Pros

This tool has made my YouTube data work much easier with reliable scraping, smooth integrations and a huge amount of time saved.

Cons

A few actors still need some fine-tuning and the initial setup can feel a bit complex when dealing with advanced workflows and scaling.

“Fast scraping and time savings”

Pros

Apify has been excellent in terms of speed and overall performance. Also the interface is clear and simple so setting up data extraction tasks doesn't take much effort. It cuts down the time spent collecting information by a huge margin.

Cons

If you're totally new to web scraping, getting started can take a little time to learn. Also the pricing may seem somewhat high if you need large-scale or ongoing scraping although it still feels worth the cost overall.

“Clean API with fast LLM workflows”

Pros

Getting started with the API was very easy and the JSON responses are consistent enough that connecting it to LLMs takes only a few minutes without any parsing problems. The pre-built actors for websites, YouTube and Spotify also save a ton of time compared with building scrapers from scratch.

Cons

The dashboard is pretty hard to use. It takes more effort than it should to find actors, manage runs and move around the platform. Deep linking also has not worked reliably for me. Also the core functionality is strong but the interface could definitely be improved.

“Powerful platform for scraper products”

Pros

From day one, Apify let me deploy a scraper once and keep it running without babysitting the infrastructure. It takes care of proxies, scaling, storage and scheduling which means I can spend my time on extraction logic instead of dealing with DevOps work. The pay per result Store model also helped me turn my scrapers into actual products. The TypeScript SDK is well designed, the API stays consistent across resources and the newer MCP server support makes connecting scrapers to LLM agents really easy. On top of that webhooks and integrations have been dependable enough for production use.

Cons

One recurring frustration is that build failures on the platform often come with vague error messages so remote debugging turns into a push and pray process. The Store ranking system also feels like a black box, with very little guidance on how to improve discoverability. It's hard to estimate costs for new actors until you've already done real test runs. The web IDE feels too limited for serious development and the dashboard starts to slow down noticeably when managing a large number of actors.

“cloud deployment win”

Pros

Apify is incredibly flexible to work with. Its library of ready made Actors saves a huge amount of time and being able to deploy custom Node.js or Python code straight to the cloud is a big win for developers. On top of that proxy management and browser fingerprinting are handled really well.

Cons

Getting started with more advanced custom Actors can be a little challenging for beginners because the learning curve is fairly steep. The credit based pricing for compute units can also be somewhat hard to estimate at first when testing a new scraper.

“strong integrations”

Pros

Scraping data is much more approachable with Apify, whether I am using it straight from the console, plugging it into a workflow tool like n8n or connecting it with Claude Code.

Cons

There are many actors available but several of them do similar things and some are quite expensive. It also seems like the focus is starting to shift from building truly useful tools toward chasing easy money.

“amazing web scraping helper”

Pros

One of the biggest reasons I use it is for web scraping and data collection and it saves me a huge amount of time. It does an amazing job scraping just about any website I need.

Cons

At times some actors are not maintained very well so bugs can pop up. When that happens, you are stuck waiting for the person responsible to fix them which gets pretty frustrating.

“Fast social data workflows”

Pros

Working with Apify has been one of the most convenient ways I have handled social media scraping especially when I need data from several platforms at once. I used it a lot for Twitter and Instagram and having structured, ready to use data without constantly dealing with rate limits or the tighter restrictions of the official APIs was a huge plus. For what I needed it felt faster and more practical than depending on the official Twitter and Instagram data access options, while still giving me the flexibility required for automation and analysis.

Cons

One thing I liked less was the somewhat cluttered UI/UX which can make navigation feel a bit less user friendly at times.

“Powerful automation and scrapers”

Pros

Building and deploying automation agents and web scrapers is much more easy here especially compared with the traditional approach where doing the same thing was either impossible or far too complicated.

Cons

A thing that could be improved is the quality of many actors in the marketplace. Quite a few of them seem low quality so it would help if the team reviewed and vetted them more carefully against stronger quality standards and removed the ones that do not work well or are not actually useful.

“save us time”

Pros

Apify has saved me a lot of time. The interface is also user friendly and the prebuilt actors handle almost everything I need. I can also put workflows together without having to write a lot of complicated code.

Cons

The documentation can feel a little scattered at times so finding the exact example I need may take a bit. It also requires quite a bit of reading to choose the right tool that will most likely do the job.

“liked this tool”

Pros

It is like a real powerhouse for web scraping and automation. The biggest advantage is the huge Store, where pre-built Actors for platforms like Google Maps, Instagram and LinkedIn can save dozens of hours that would otherwise go into custom development. The SDK is clearly documented so building custom scrapers is very manageable when that becomes necessary. Its serverless infrastructure is also very amazing, taking care of proxy management and browser scaling without hassle. It's a dependable foundation for anyone creating data-driven products or AI automation workflows.

Cons

Well getting started can be challenging if you're not a developer. Even though the pre-built Actors are very useful, customizing them usually takes a decent grasp of JavaScript or Python. The pricing can also feel a little unclear especially for high-volume workloads. If Actor settings aren't monitored closely, compute units can disappear faster than expected. More detailed budget alerts would be a really helpful addition.

“Versatile and affordable platform”

Pros

There's a huge range of options, plenty of flexibility and the pricing offers excellent value for the money. Customer support has also been amazing. Plus it is easy to use manually and just as convenient to integrate into other workflows.

Cons

I don't have any major complaints though every now and then you might run into an actor that's buggy or a bit harder to work with. That is more like an issue on the developer's side than with app itself.

“good software overall”

Pros

Apify really stands out for how easily it scales and the huge collection of ready-made actors is incredibly useful.

Cons

Getting started can feel a little challenging for non-technical users especially when it comes to customizing more complex scrapers.

“Effective lead generation toolkit”

Pros

The feature set felt really versatile and the Google Maps scraper has been the biggest highlight for me. Overall it's been incredibly useful for finding leads for my business.

Cons

Honestly I haven't run into anything to dislike. It's a really great platform and helps me get done exactly what I need in an efficient way.

“Simple and time-saving scraper”

Pros

Apify turned out to be a simple and efficient solution. I had looked into other options that were much more complex and discovering the Apify Facebook scraper helped me save time while cutting down a lot of that complexity.

Cons

There's no French translation yet and even though the chatbot works really well, the platform could use more tutorials especially to help with navigating the interface.

“Actor store saves hours”

Pros

Actor Store cuts out a huge amount of setup time. With ready made scrapers for nearly every major platform, it's possible to start pulling data in less than an hour instead of having to build everything from scratch.

Cons

One frustrating part is that credits don't carry over. Any unused monthly credits just disappear which is pretty unfair in months when usage is lighter.