#1 Apify Alternative
Scrape, crawl, map, and search the web through one API, with JavaScript rendering and anti-bot proxies in every 1-credit page. On Apify, a browser-rendered page on a protected site bills compute units plus residential proxy traffic at $7.50 to $8 per GB, about $12 to $17 per 1,000 pages, against $0.90 on Context.dev Pro.
1,000 protected pages, rendered in a browser
Scale $199 vs Pro $90, October 2026 list prices
The crawler figure assumes 3.3 compute units and 1.5 GB of residential traffic per 1,000 pages with media blocked, or $15.53 at 2 GB with default settings. Apify’s raw HTTP crawler is cheaper on static, unprotected pages, at about $0.13 per 1,000.
Powering agents and products with the world's data.
Why switch
Apify and Context.dev both crawl and scrape the web for AI pipelines. Context.dev charges one credit per page with rendering and proxies included, so a protected site costs the same as an easy one.
- Key difference
One credit per page, not compute units plus proxy gigabytes
Apify’s Website Content Crawler bills compute units for the browser, $0.16 each on Scale, plus residential proxy traffic at $7.50 per GB, which is what Apify tells you to use when a site blocks the crawler. A retailer page that loads 1.5 to 2 MB comes to about $11.78 to $15.53 per 1,000 pages before retries, and Apify’s own $0.50 to $5 estimate for browser pages leaves the proxy out. Context.dev Pro is $90 for 100,000 credits, so the same 1,000 pages cost $0.90 with rendering and proxies included.
- Billing
Failed pages do not burn your budget
Website Content Crawler and other pay-per-usage Actors bill compute and proxy traffic for every attempt, including retries on blocked pages; only some pay-per-event Actors, such as Web Fetch, skip failed requests. On Context.dev, a scrape where every output fails costs nothing (a target 404 keeps the base credit), and 429, 408, and 5xx responses are never charged. Failed batch pages are refunded when the batch settles.
- Scrape
Every output from one endpoint and one price list
Markdown, rendered HTML, screenshots, images, JSON against your schema (5 credits), product data, highlights, and PDF or Office files all come from POST /web/scrape, and up to five browser actions bring a page to 2 credits. Batches run the same outputs across up to 100,000 URLs. On Apify, each of those jobs is a different Actor with its own input schema and pricing model, and Web Fetch returns Markdown, HTML, text, links, or raw content, with no screenshots or JSON extraction.
- Search
Web search with page content for about half the price
Context.dev Web Search returns ten ranked results with the passages that answer your query for 2 credits, or every result page as Markdown for 11 credits, $9.90 per 1,000 searches on Pro. Apify’s RAG Web Browser bills each query and each fetched page, which comes to $18.67 per 1,000 ten-result searches on Scale. Answers returns a sourced answer in your JSON shape for 10 credits; Apify has no first-party Actor for that.
- Plans
A $90 plan with 100 concurrent requests
Apify has no plan between Starter at $19 and Scale at $199, and it limits concurrent Actor runs and total memory rather than requests: 32 runs and 64 GB on Starter. Inside a run, how many pages load at once depends on how much memory each browser needs. Context.dev Pro is $90 for 100 concurrent requests, its Growth and Scale plans allow 250 and 500, and requests over the limit get a 429 with Retry-After.
- Developers
SDKs in five languages, and zero data retention on request
Apify has official TypeScript and Python clients, but no Ruby client, and its Go and PHP clients, created in June and July 2026, are labeled experimental and AI-generated. Context.dev ships TypeScript, Python, Ruby, Go, and PHP SDKs, a CLI, an MCP server, and a public OpenAPI document. Zero data retention is available on request at no extra credit cost; Apify documents configurable storage retention but no zero-retention option.
What one request really costs
What 1,000 requests cost on Context.dev Pro ($90) and Apify Scale ($199), by how the page is fetched. Apify has no plan between $19 and $199, and Scale’s unit rates are lower than Starter’s. Apify’s price depends on the Actor, the browser, and the proxy traffic; Context.dev’s does not.
| Request | Context.dev | Apify | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|
| Plain HTML, raw HTTP crawlerStatic pages with no rendering or bot protection | $0.90 | $0.13 (0.8 CU) | 7x less |
| Rendered in a browser, datacenter proxyJavaScript-built pages with no bot protection | $0.90 | $0.53 (3.3 CU) | 1.7x less |
| One URL to Markdown with Web FetchApify’s flat-price Actor, platform usage included | $0.90 | $1.25 (per fetch) | 1.4x more |
| Rendered on residential proxiesBot-protected retailers, 1.5 to 2 GB per 1,000 pages | $0.90 | $11.78–$15.53 (CU + GB) | 13–17x more |
| JSON extraction against your schemaA typed object back from the page | $4.50 (5 credits) | Store Actor + LLM tokens | Bring an LLM |
| Web search, 10 results as MarkdownEvery result page read in full | $9.90 (11 credits) | $18.67 (RAG Web Browser) | 1.9x more |
Derived from Context.dev Pro ($90 for 100,000 credits) and Apify Scale ($199 of usage at $0.16 per compute unit and $7.50 per residential GB) at monthly billing. Crawler rows use Apify’s estimates of 0.8 compute units per 1,000 raw HTTP pages and 300 browser pages per compute unit; residential traffic assumes 1.5 to 2 MB per page, near the HTTP Archive 2025 median. Web Fetch and RAG Web Browser prices are from their Apify Store pricing pages.
Full comparison
| Feature | Context.dev | Apify |
|---|---|---|
| Scraping & Crawling | ||
| Scrape to Markdown or HTML | Yes | Yes |
| JavaScript rendering | Always included | More compute units |
| Residential proxies and anti-bot handling | Always included | $7–$8 per GB |
| Screenshots | Yes | Via Actors |
| JSON extraction against your schema | 5 credits | Via Store Actors |
| Prebuilt scrapers for specific sites | 13 parsers | About 91,000 Actors |
| Crawl a site | 1 credit/page | CU plus proxy GB |
| Map site URLs | Yes | Sitemap Actor |
| Async batch scraping | Up to 100,000 URLs | Yes |
| Change monitoring with webhooks | Yes | Schedules + webhooks |
| Parse PDFs and office documents | Yes | PDFs via Web Fetch |
| Country geotargeting | Yes | Country and US state |
| Signed-in scraping with saved logins | Browser profiles | Your own cookies |
| Run your own scraper code on hosted infrastructure | No | Yes |
| Interaction & Search | ||
| Browser actions before capture | Up to 5 actions | Custom JS code |
| Web search with page content | Yes | RAG Web Browser |
| Research answers with sources | 10 credits | No |
| Google SERP API | No | $1.80–$4.50 per 1K |
| Pricing & Billing | ||
| Pricing model | 1 credit per page | CU, proxy GB, events |
| Failed requests free | Yes | Some event Actors |
| Plan between $19 and $199 | Pro at $90 | No |
| Concurrency limit | 100 requests on Pro | 128 runs on Scale |
| Free plan | 1,000 credits/mo | $5 usage/mo |
| Yearly discount | 2 months free | 10% off |
| Deployment | ||
| Managed scraping API | Yes | Yes |
| Raw proxy network for your own code | No | Yes |
| Open-source crawler you can self-host | No | Crawlee (Apache-2.0) |
| Zero data retention | On request | No |
| Developer Experience | ||
| Public OpenAPI spec | Yes | Yes |
| TypeScript SDK | Yes | Yes |
| Python SDK | Yes | Yes |
| Go and PHP SDKs | Yes | Experimental, AI-built |
| Ruby SDK | Yes | No |
| CLI | Yes | Yes |
| MCP server | Yes | Yes |
| Also Included: Brand & Company Data | ||
| Brand profile by domain, name, email, or ticker | Yes | No |
| Logo CDN for direct embedding (Logo Link) | Yes | No |
Cost per 1,000 pages
Public list prices on both sites, broken down to the cost of 1,000 pages at each tier. Apify’s price depends on the Actor, the browser, and the proxy traffic, so its protected-page, Web Fetch, and static-page rates are all shown.
| Tier | Context.dev | Apify |
|---|---|---|
| Free | Free $0/mo 1,000 credits 2 concurrent requests $0 per 1K pages, any page | Free $0/mo $5 of usage 5 concurrent runs 300 protected pages a month (crawler) 3,333 pages a month (Web Fetch) |
| Entry | Developer $20/mo 5,000 credits 10 concurrent requests $3.33–$4.00 per 1K pages, any page | Starter $19/mo $19 of usage 32 concurrent runs $14.91–$16.67 per 1K protected pages (crawler) $1.34–$1.50 per 1K pages (Web Fetch) $0.14–$0.16 per 1K static pages (raw HTTP) |
| Mid | Pro $90/mo 100,000 credits 100 concurrent requests $0.75–$0.90 per 1K pages, any page | No plan between $19 and $199 |
| Growth | Growth $300/mo 500,000 credits 250 concurrent requests $0.50–$0.60 per 1K pages, any page | Scale $199/mo $199 of usage 128 concurrent runs $13.97–$15.53 per 1K protected pages (crawler) $1.12–$1.25 per 1K pages (Web Fetch) $0.12–$0.13 per 1K static pages (raw HTTP) |
| High volume | Scale $500/mo 1,000,000 credits 500 concurrent requests $0.42–$0.50 per 1K pages, any page | Business $999/mo $999 of usage 256 concurrent runs $12.99–$14.43 per 1K protected pages (crawler) $0.90–$1.00 per 1K pages (Web Fetch) $0.09–$0.10 per 1K static pages (raw HTTP) |
- Protected pages on Apify assume Website Content Crawler with a headless browser and residential proxies: 3.3 compute units per 1,000 pages (Apify’s help-center average of 300 browser pages per compute unit) and about 2 GB of residential traffic, since the crawler loads images by default. Context.dev bills 1 credit per page with rendering, managed proxies, and anti-bot handling always on. Each range runs from yearly to monthly billing.
- Web Fetch is Apify’s flat-price Actor: $1.50 per 1,000 successful fetches on Free and Starter, $1.25 on Scale, and $1.00 on Business, with platform usage included and failed requests free. It returns Markdown, HTML, text, links, or raw content, without screenshots, schema extraction, or browser actions, and on Starter it costs less per page than Context.dev Developer.
- Static pages assume Apify’s raw HTTP crawler at 0.8 compute units per 1,000 pages, from the Website Content Crawler README, before data transfer. Apify has no plan between Starter ($19) and Scale ($199).
- Apify plan prices, compute unit prices ($0.20, $0.20, $0.16, $0.13), residential proxy prices ($8, $8, $7.50, $7 per GB), and the 10% yearly discount are from apify.com/pricing. Prepaid usage equals the plan price and expires at the end of each billing cycle.
Prices and plans checked on .
Which one fits
Both crawl and scrape the web for AI pipelines. These are the cases where the choice is clear. For formats, pricing, and code, see the Context.dev web scraping API.
Choose Context.dev if
- You scrape JavaScript-heavy or bot-protected pages and want one credit per page instead of compute units plus residential proxy gigabytes.
- You want screenshots, JSON against your schema, search, crawl, map, and change monitoring from one API with one price list.
- You need failed pages to cost nothing and a monthly bill you can work out before you run a job.
- You need Ruby, Go, or PHP SDKs, zero data retention on request, or a plan between $19 and $199.
Choose Apify if
- A maintained Store Actor already covers your target, such as Google Maps, Instagram, or TikTok. Apify Store lists about 91,000 Actors.
- You want to run your own Crawlee, Playwright, or Python scrapers on hosted infrastructure with schedules and storage.
- You need a raw proxy network (residential, datacenter, Google SERP) for your own code, or Google SERP JSON with ads and AI Overviews.
- You mostly fetch static, unprotected pages, at about $0.13 per 1,000 with the raw HTTP crawler on Scale, or want about 12,000 Web Fetch pages a month for $19 on Starter, against 5,000 for $20 on Context.dev Developer.
A few things to know.
More details in the API documentation.
What is the best Apify alternative?
Context.dev is an Apify alternative for teams that scrape, crawl, and search the web from code and want one price per page. Scrape, crawl, map, search, batches, monitors, and document parsing run through one API, with JavaScript rendering and anti-bot proxies included in every credit. If you need a maintained scraper for a specific platform, want to host your own crawler code, or mostly crawl static pages, Apify is the better fit.
How does Apify pricing compare with Context.dev for protected pages?
Apify’s Website Content Crawler bills compute units ($0.16 on Scale, $0.20 on Starter) plus residential proxy traffic ($7.50 or $8 per GB). With a headless browser on a bot-protected retailer, that comes to about $12 to $17 per 1,000 pages, assuming 3.3 compute units and 1.5 to 2 GB of traffic. Context.dev Pro is $90 for 100,000 credits, so the same 1,000 pages cost $0.90 with rendering and proxies included. On static pages without bot protection, Apify’s raw HTTP crawler is cheaper, at about $0.13 to $0.16 per 1,000 pages.
How does Context.dev compare with Apify’s Web Fetch Actor?
Web Fetch is Apify’s flat-price page fetcher: $1.50 per 1,000 successful fetches on Free and Starter, $1.25 on Scale, and $1.00 on Business, with platform usage included and failed requests free. On the $19 Starter plan it costs less per page than Context.dev Developer ($4.00 per 1,000 at monthly billing). From Context.dev Pro up, Context.dev costs less, at $0.90 per 1,000 or under, and the same call can return screenshots, JSON against your schema, product data, and highlights, and run browser actions before capture, which Web Fetch does not offer.
Does Context.dev charge for failed pages?
Not when every output of a scrape fails, except that a target 404 keeps the base credit, and 429, 408, 5xx, validation, and auth errors are never charged. Failed batch pages are refunded when the batch settles. On Apify, pay-per-usage Actors such as Website Content Crawler bill the compute and proxy traffic of every attempt, while some pay-per-event Actors, including Web Fetch, skip failed requests.
Can I migrate from Apify to Context.dev?
Yes, for crawling and page extraction. Website Content Crawler jobs map to POST /web/crawl (up to 500 pages per synchronous call) or a Batch of up to 100,000 URLs, Web Fetch calls map to Scrape, and RAG Web Browser calls map to Search. Schedules plus webhooks map to Monitors, and SDKs cover TypeScript, Python, Ruby, Go, and PHP. Store Actors for specific platforms only carry over where a prebuilt parser exists, such as Google Maps, the App Store, Google Play, G2 reviews, and Instagram.
When is Apify the better choice?
Choose Apify when a maintained Store Actor already handles your target, such as Google Maps, Instagram, or TikTok, or when you want to run your own Crawlee, Playwright, or Python scraper code with schedules and storage. It is also the better fit if you need raw residential and datacenter proxies for your own code, Google SERP data with ads and AI Overviews, or mostly static pages, where its raw HTTP crawler costs about $0.13 per 1,000 pages on Scale.
Can I self-host Context.dev like Crawlee?
No. Context.dev is a managed, closed-source API. Crawlee is an Apache-2.0 library you can run anywhere, but it is the crawling framework, not the Apify platform, so you supply your own proxies, browsers, and infrastructure. If running everything on your own servers is a requirement, Crawlee is the option to look at.
Does Context.dev work with AI agents and MCP like Apify?
Yes. Context.dev has an MCP server, a CLI, and an agent skill, so agents can scrape, crawl, and search through the same API. Apify’s hosted MCP server at mcp.apify.com exposes Store Actors as tools, which suits agents that need platform-specific scrapers.
More comparisons
Other web scraping APIs that teams compare with Context.dev, or see every comparison.
- Context.dev vs SpiderUsable content on 92.1% of 806 benchmark URLs against Spider’s 84.0%. One credit per page instead of per-GB residential bandwidth.
- Context.dev vs Crawl4AIUsable content on 92.1% of 806 benchmark URLs against Crawl4AI Cloud’s 88.0%, with no browsers or proxies to run. One credit per page here.
- Context.dev vs Browse AIAny URL through one API, at 1 credit per page, instead of recorded robots and premium-site credit multipliers.
Ready to switch from Apify?
Point your crawl and scrape jobs at one API with rendering and proxies in every credit, starting with the free plan’s 1,000 credits a month.