The Best Apify Alternative

Octoparse is no-code: a drag-and-drop visual builder paired with AI auto-detect lets a non-developer ship a working scraper in minutes. Apify is developer-first — most custom workflows require writing an Actor in JavaScript or Python, and even many pre-built Store Actors assume coding familiarity for configuration. If your team isn't engineering-heavy, Octoparse will get you to production faster.

Octoparse charges a flat monthly subscription (Standard from $83/month, Professional $299) that includes a generous task quota covering 600+ templates and unlimited custom local tasks. A small number of premium templates (the ones that depend on residential proxies or anti-bot infrastructure) carry per-record fees on top. Apify charges per compute unit ($0.13–$0.20/CU on Free / Starter / Scale, deeper discounts only kick in on the Business plan at $999/month), plus separate add-on fees for filters, sorts, transcripts, proxies, storage, transfer and concurrent runs. At any meaningful volume, Octoparse is typically 2–10× cheaper depending on Apify tier — and the gap only widens above the Apify Scale plan's $199 base.

Octoparse fits non-developer teams — analysts, marketers, ops, founders — and any team that runs multiple scrapers across many sites and wants flat-rate pricing. Apify fits dedicated engineering teams that write and maintain their own Actors, target popular English-language sites already covered by the marketplace, and are OK with per-record billing for low-volume single-use cases.

Yes. Octoparse uses a Chromium-based browser engine internally, so JavaScript-heavy single-page apps, infinite scroll, AJAX content and login-gated pages all work — including LinkedIn, X / Twitter, TikTok, modern e-commerce and more. The visual builder lets you click through dynamic UI like a human, and AI auto-detect recognizes loaded content automatically. Apify supports JS pages via Puppeteer / Playwright Actors, but you either write the script yourself or pick a community Actor that already handles it.

Octoparse scales through Cloud Extraction: tasks queue on Octoparse's cloud nodes and run on a schedule, with parallel execution growing on higher-tier plans. One Japanese team pulled 900M+ records on Standard at $83/month. Apify scales via concurrent Actor runs on their cloud — more parallelism requires higher tiers and every compute unit, GB of proxy traffic and storage hour adds to the bill.

Octoparse maintains 600+ templates in-house — Amazon, Google Maps, LinkedIn, YouTube, X / Twitter, plus localized non-English templates for Mercari, Rakuten, Yahoo Japan, Coupang, Leboncoin, Idealo and more. They're updated by the Octoparse team when target sites change. Apify Store lists 32,000+ Actors but they're community-built: quality varies, most carry their own per-record fee, and fixes depend on the original author's response time.

Both ship REST APIs, webhooks and connectors for Zapier, Make and n8n. The key difference is how access is metered. Octoparse's AI Open Platform (MCP Server + REST API + CLI under a single key) is included on every plan. Octoparse Free and Basic Plans don't consume a separate credit budget — there are 2,000 free records per week. Apify's API, MCP and integration triggers are also available on every plan, but every call consumes platform credit, including the Free Plan ($5/month on Free, runs blocked when credit runs out).

Octoparse Free includes 2,000 MCP / AI-driven records per week (around 8,000/month), unlimited custom local tasks, and access to the full 600+ template library — no credit card required. Apify Free gives $5 of monthly platform credit at $0.20 per compute unit (≈25 CU), which is typically consumed in 1–2 runs of a popular Actor; unused credit expires monthly and the Free plan blocks new runs once credit is gone.

Scraping publicly accessible data is generally legal across major jurisdictions, but always respect the target site's Terms of Service, robots.txt and applicable data-protection laws (GDPR, CCPA). On security: Octoparse offers a local extraction mode where scraped data stays entirely on your machine and never touches a third-party server — useful for regulated industries and sensitive data. Apify is cloud-only, so every page renders on their infrastructure and your data sits in their dataset storage by default.

Yes. Octoparse ships native desktop clients for both Windows and macOS — you can download the Mac build directly. You can also run Octoparse Cloud, which is fully browser-based and OS-agnostic. Apify is entirely cloud-based with no desktop client to install, so Mac, Linux and Windows users all access it identically through a browser.