Apify alternatives: 6 options compared on published price
Marketplace of ready-made scrapers ('Actors') plus a serverless platform and proxy products. Looking for something different? These are the vendors in our data closest to Apify by product type and shared price metrics, compared on published prices checked . Prices only, not quality.
partial verification from $19/mo MCP: Yes · Apify full pricing page
What to weigh about Apify first
Drawn from the Apify record on this site: its published watch-outs and the figures we could not verify.
Watch-outs
- Total cost = Actor price + compute + proxy; compare per-Actor, not per-plan.
- Unused prepaid credit expires monthly.
Could not verify
- Per-result prices are set per Actor (pay-per-event etc.). No honest platform-wide per-page figure; left null.
Alternatives at a glance
How these were chosen: a fixed rule counts the price metrics both vendors publish plus category overlap. The order is by that score. It is not by price, popularity or commercial relationship; FetchIndex has an affiliate relationship with Firecrawl only (disclosure).
| Alternative | Category | Shared price metrics | Free tier | MCP / agent support | Verification | Head-to-head |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bright Data alternatives to Bright Data | Proxies & unblockers | Protected / anti-bot page, SERP query, Residential proxy bandwidth | Unlocker and SERP APIs: 5K requests/month free, no card (as stated on their pricing pages). Browser API page lists a 1 GB monthly free tier. | Yes | full verification | Apify vs Bright Data |
| Oxylabs alternatives to Oxylabs | Proxies & unblockers | SERP query, Residential proxy bandwidth | $5 welcome credit toward any product (one-time as described), no ongoing free tier stated. | Yes | full verification | no head-to-head page |
| ScraperAPI alternatives to ScraperAPI | Scraping APIs | Protected / anti-bot page, SERP query | 1,000 free credits/month (max 5 concurrent) per the FAQ; 7-day trial with 5,000 credits. | Yes | partial verification | no head-to-head page |
| Zyte alternatives to Zyte | Scraping APIs | Protected / anti-bot page | $5 free credit trial; 30 days, no commitment. | Yes | full verification | no head-to-head page |
| Crawl4AI alternatives to Crawl4AI | Scraping APIs | SERP query | Self-hosting is free forever (you pay your own infra). Cloud: 1,000 free credits/month, no card. | Yes | full verification | no head-to-head page |
| Hyperbrowser alternatives to Hyperbrowser | Browser infrastructure | Protected / anti-bot page | 5,000 credits included with a free account (~50 browser hours or 5,000 fetched pages). | Yes | full verification | no head-to-head page |
Price comparison by use case
Protected / anti-bot page
| Vendor | Lowest published price | Plan / rate | Monthly spend needed | Compared with Apify |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Zyte | $0.61 per 1,000 | $500/mo commitment - Tier 5 HTTP | $500/mo | 1.6x cheaper |
| Apify | $1.00 per 1,000 component only | Business (Unblocker) | $999/mo | this vendor |
| ScraperAPI | $1.04 per 1,000 | Scaling | $475/mo | about the same price |
| Bright Data | $1.30 per 1,000 | Unlocker Scale ($499) | $499/mo | 1.3x more expensive |
| Hyperbrowser | $10.00 per 1,000 | All plans (Fetch + ultra stealth) | none | 10.0x more expensive |
SERP query (structured search results)
| Vendor | Lowest published price | Plan / rate | Monthly spend needed | Compared with Apify |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Crawl4AI | $0.6653 per 1,000 | Cloud Scale | $499/mo | 2.6x cheaper |
| Oxylabs | $0.70 per 1,000 | Flexible - Google non-JS | $500/mo | 2.4x cheaper |
| Bright Data | $1.31 per 1,000 | SERP Scale ($499) | $499/mo | 1.3x cheaper |
| Apify | $1.70 per 1,000 component only | Business (SERP proxy) | $999/mo | this vendor |
| ScraperAPI | $2.38 per 1,000 | Scaling (Google = 25 credits) | $475/mo | 1.4x more expensive |
Residential proxy bandwidth
| Vendor | Lowest published price | Plan / rate | Monthly spend needed | Compared with Apify |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oxylabs | $4.00 per GB | Flexible | $500/mo | 1.8x cheaper |
| Apify | $7.00 per GB | Business | $999/mo | this vendor |
| Bright Data | $8.00 per GB | PAYG (list) | none | 1.1x more expensive |
Estimated monthly cost at example volumes
SERP query (structured search results), using the cost calculator model: cheapest published plan that covers each volume, including published overage rates. Free tiers are not subtracted. Open the calculator with these inputs.
| Requests / month | Apify | Bright Data | Oxylabs | ScraperAPI | Crawl4AI |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 10,000 | $25.00 Free/Starter (SERP proxy) component only | $15.00 SERP PAYG | $30.00 Starter - Google non-JS | $299 Business (Google = 25 credits) | $10.00 Cloud Starter |
| 100,000 | $250 Free/Starter (SERP proxy) component only | $150 SERP PAYG | $500 Flexible - Google non-JS | $299 Business (Google = 25 credits) | $99.00 Cloud Builder |
| 1,000,000 | $2,500 Free/Starter (SERP proxy) component only | $1,500 SERP PAYG | not enough data | not enough data | not enough data |
Which alternative fits which job
- Bright Data: Large proxy networks plus Web Unlocker, SERP, Crawl and Browser APIs, datasets and scrapers. Tends to fit: Hard anti-bot targets at scale. Watch-out: Many products with separate pricing pages; check which one you need.
- Oxylabs: Proxy networks and Web Scraper/Search APIs on one subscription with volume tiers. Tends to fit: SERP + scraping + proxies under one subscription. Watch-out: Generic '/Scrape from $0.50' is a starting rate; target-specific rows differ. This site uses the conservative custom-domain rows.
- ScraperAPI: Proxy-rotating scraping API billed in API credits, with per-domain credit costs. Tends to fit: Simple 'send URL, get HTML' scraping at modest volume. Watch-out: Credit cost varies by domain: Google SERP = 25 credits, bot-protected sites 11+.
- Zyte: Zyte API: automatic unblocking, rendering and extraction with per-site difficulty tiers. Tends to fit: Per-site fair pricing where easy sites are very cheap. Watch-out: Cost varies 10x+ by site tier; you must check your target domains.
- Crawl4AI: Open-source (Apache-2.0) LLM-friendly crawler, with an optional hosted Cloud API. Tends to fit: Free, self-hosted crawling for RAG. Watch-out: Self-hosting means you handle browsers, proxies and blocks.
- Hyperbrowser: Cloud browsers, sandboxes, a Fetch/Search web API and agent runners on a shared credit balance. Tends to fit: Cheap browser hours and a built-in Fetch API. Watch-out: Proxy data at $10/GB bills on top of browser time.
When Apify is still the better choice
- Pre-built scrapers for named sites (maps, social, e-commerce)
- Teams that want one invoice for scrapers + proxies + storage
Frequently asked questions
What is the cheapest alternative to Apify?
For protected / anti-bot page, Zyte has the lowest published price among the alternatives listed: $0.61 per 1,000 ($500/mo commitment - Tier 5 HTTP) versus $1.00 for Apify (Business (Unblocker)). That is price only: check reliability on your own targets, and note the cheapest plan can require a larger monthly spend.
Is there a free alternative to Apify?
Alternatives with a recurring free tier in our data: Bright Data (Unlocker and SERP APIs: 5K requests/month free, no card (as stated on their pricing pages). Browser API page lists a 1 GB monthly free tier); ScraperAPI (1,000 free credits/month (max 5 concurrent) per the FAQ; 7-day trial with 5,000 credits); Crawl4AI (Self-hosting is free forever (you pay your own infra). Cloud: 1,000 free credits/month, no card). Free-tier limits change often; check the vendor page.
Which Apify alternatives support MCP?
Apify: yes. Alternatives with a documented MCP server in our data: Bright Data, Oxylabs, ScraperAPI, Zyte, Crawl4AI, Hyperbrowser.
Keep exploring
Use-case guides
Corrections welcome: [email protected]. Each vendor page lists the official sources used.