Apify vs Browse AI 2026
Short answer: pick Apify if you have a developer or scrape at volume, pick Browse AI if a non-technical team needs change monitoring running today. Apify edges the overall (4.2/5 vs 3.8/5) in our hands-on tests, but the right pick depends entirely on who's driving.
The catch most comparisons miss: Browse AI charges 2 to 10 credits per run on premium sites like Amazon, LinkedIn and Cloudflare-protected pages instead of 1, which can multiply a monitoring bill 5 to 10 times. Above roughly 50,000 rows a month, Apify's compute-unit model gets cheaper. That single billing fact decides most of this match.
38,000+ Actors, full SDK, cheaper at volume. The developer pick.
Try Apify for free →Read the full Apify review →Point-and-click monitoring in minutes, but premium sites burn 2 to 10 credits.
Try Browse AI for free →Read the full Browse AI review →Who wins for you
A point-and-click robot scrapes a standard site in 5 to 10 minutes, no code, and 250+ prebuilt robots cover most monitoring needs out of the box.
Try Browse AI for free →38,000+ Actors, a JS and Python SDK, custom Actor dev, Git import and a pay-as-you-go compute model. Unlimited flexibility.
Try Apify for free →Hourly change alerts plus native Google Sheets and Airtable sync, from $19/mo on the annual Personal plan. Cheapest entry for light standard sites.
Try Browse AI for free →The CU model gets cheaper at scale; the $199 Scale plan handles parallel runs and credit math favours Apify above roughly 50K pages a month.
Try Apify for free →Apify vs Browse AI at a glance
Every cell below is grounded in each tool's official pricing and docs as of June 2026. The two billing units do not map onto each other, so read the billing row first.
| Apify | Browse AI | Edge | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Billing unitTwo models that do not compare directly | Compute Unit (1 CU = 1 GB RAM for 1 hour) | Credit (1 credit = 10 rows extracted, or 1 screenshot) | — |
| Entry paid price (monthly) | $29/mo Starter | $48/mo Personal | Apify |
| Entry paid price (annual) | $29/mo, no annual discount listed | $19/mo Personal annual | Browse AI |
| Free tier | $5 credits/mo, 25 concurrent runs, no card | 50 credits/mo, 2 websites, 3 users, no card | — |
| Ready-made libraryAround 150 times more ready-made options | 38,044 Actors in the Apify Store | 250+ prebuilt robots | Apify |
| Code required | Yes for custom Actors (JS, Python, TS); no for prebuilt | No, point-and-click for every robot | Browse AI |
| Change monitoring | Via scheduling and webhooks, no dedicated UI | Native hourly, daily and weekly alerts with change-size triggers | Browse AI |
| Captcha and anti-bot | Built-in residential proxy pools and captcha solving on all plans | External proxy config, captcha solving via third party | Apify |
| Premium-site costThe single biggest cost surprise | Same CU rate on any site | 2 to 10 credits per run on Amazon, LinkedIn, Cloudflare sites | Apify |
| GDPR and hosting | EU-headquartered (Prague), GDPR-native legal entity | US-based, EU GDPR entity unverified publicly | Apify |
| IntegrationsBrowse AI for no-code, near tie for developers | REST API, SDKs, webhooks, native Zapier, Make and n8n nodes | Native Google Sheets and Airtable, 7,000+ apps via Zapier and Make | Browse AI |
| Ideal user | Developers, data teams, high-volume and stealth scraping | No-code teams monitoring standard sites at low volume | — |
Prices checked June 2026 on apify.com/pricing and browse.ai/pricing. Both tools price in USD.
Criterion by criterion, head to head
The same five criteria we scored on each tool's review page. Equal or close scores still get a clear pick.
01 Round 1: getting the first scrape live.
Browse AI takes this 4.3 to 3.8, and the gap is widest for beginners. We sat a non-technical teammate in front of both. With Browse AI, the point-and-click recorder had a robot scraping a standard product page in under 10 minutes, and the AI pattern detection picked up the right fields on roughly 70% of normal sites without any selector work. Apify is a different start: even running a prebuilt Actor means understanding compute units, proxy settings, memory and JSON inputs, and our tester needed 3 to 4 hours before it clicked.
The flip side is real. Browse AI struggles on complex single-page apps with lazy loading or shadow DOM, where you fall back to manual selector config. And among experienced users the gap closes hard: Capterra ease-of-use scores sit at Apify 4.6 and Browse AI 4.7, effectively level. So the win is about the first afternoon, not the long run.
Choose Apify once you hit any real technical requirement and have someone comfortable with code.
Choose Browse AI if a non-technical person needs a working scraper today.
02 Round 2: where the bill actually lands.
Apify wins this 4.0 to 2.8, and that 2.8 is Browse AI's lowest score of the five criteria, which tells you the pricing pain is real. The culprit is the premium-site surcharge: Amazon, LinkedIn and Cloudflare-protected pages cost 2 to 10 credits per run instead of 1, so a 50-site monitoring project that touches any of them burns credits 5 to 10 times faster than the plan math suggests. Credits also expire monthly with no rollover on any plan.
Apify's compute-unit model is pay-as-you-go: the plan subscription is the usage budget, so at Starter the $29 is itself the spend, no wasted overhead credits. Above roughly 50,000 rows a month Apify's Scale plan beats Browse AI Professional plus overages by a wide margin (see the worked examples below). Browse AI claws back at the very low end: the $19/mo annual Personal plan is the cheapest entry for monitoring a handful of standard sites.
Choose Apify above roughly 50K rows a month, or whenever premium sites are in play.
Choose Browse AI for light monitoring of 10 or fewer standard sites on the annual plan.
03 Round 3: raw power vs purpose-built monitoring.
Apify edges this 4.5 to 4.2, because the two are deep in different directions. The Apify Store holds 38,044 Actors against Browse AI's 250+ prebuilt robots, roughly 150 times more ready-made options, and custom Actor development in JS, Python or TS with Puppeteer, Playwright and headless Chrome means there's almost no scraping job it can't handle. Built-in residential proxy rotation and captcha solving on every plan keep it running on anti-bot-heavy sites.
Browse AI answers with the best no-code change-monitoring UX in the category: hourly, daily and weekly schedules with AI-powered change-size threshold alerts, all without code, where Apify only monitors via webhooks and scheduling. The honest limits: Browse AI's minimum monitoring interval is 1 hour (no real-time, a problem for flash sales or breaking news) and it does not handle shadow DOM or WebSockets natively. Capterra feature counts back the gap: Apify 29 of 31, Browse AI 22 of 31.
Choose Apify for custom, complex or anti-bot-heavy scraping at any depth.
Choose Browse AI for monitoring-first workflows on standard sites.
04 Round 4: who answers when it breaks.
This one is almost a draw at 4.0 to 4.1, with Browse AI a hair ahead in our scoring, though Capterra flips it slightly the other way (Apify 4.6, Browse AI 4.5). Apify leans on its community: a Discord of 8,000+ developers, chat from Starter up, priority chat on Scale and an account manager on Business, and the engineers actually hand you code examples. For a developer-driven team that depth is worth a lot.
Browse AI runs on email support with under-24-hour responses and a 50-plus article knowledge base, which suits an async no-code team fine. The honest catch we hit: live chat is locked behind the Premium plan at $500+/mo, which leaves Professional users (paying $87 to $399) without it, and the US-based team means overnight delays for EU customers. Neither is flawless, so it comes down to whether you want a community to lean on or async tickets are enough.
Choose Apify if you value a developer community and technical depth.
Choose Browse AI if async email support covers your needs.
05 Round 5: native pipes vs raw API reach.
Browse AI takes this 4.6 to 4.5, and the win is for no-code teams. Its native Google Sheets sync is real-time, Airtable comes with field mapping, and 7,000+ apps connect through Zapier, Make and Pabbly, all usable without writing a line. If your workflow lives in a spreadsheet, Browse AI is faster to wire up than anything on the Apify side.
Apify answers for developers: a REST API, official JS and Python SDKs, native Zapier and Make integrations, a native n8n node, a full webhook system and Git import from GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket. The n8n route is a quiet advantage, since self-hosted n8n keeps data on-premises for regulated industries and is far cheaper than Zapier for data-heavy pipelines. The bémol on Browse AI: no official Python or Node SDK, so custom dev is raw HTTP only and most integrations route through Zapier, adding $0 to $200 a month. Breadth of no-code pipes to Browse AI, code-first reach to Apify.
Choose Apify for dev teams building data pipelines with n8n or custom code.
Choose Browse AI for no-code teams living in Sheets and Airtable.
The real cost, plan by plan
Two billing models that do not map onto each other. We list the plans, then run the exact cost examples the data supports, assumptions stated.
| Apify | Browse AI | Edge | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Free | $0: $5 credits/mo, 25 concurrent runs, 8 GB RAM, 5 datacenter IPs | $0: 50 credits/mo (about 500 rows), 2 websites, 3 users | — |
| Entry planBrowse AI is cheaper at the very low end on annual billing | Starter $29/mo: $29 credits, 8 GB RAM, 32 concurrent, chat support | Personal $19/mo annual or $48/mo monthly: 12,000 to 24,000 credits/yr, 5 sites | — |
| Mid planApify gets cheaper per unit at this tier | Scale $199/mo: $199 credits at $0.16/CU, 32 GB RAM, 128 concurrent | Professional $69/mo and up: 60,000 to 360,000 credits/yr, 10 sites, 10 users | Apify |
| Top plan | Business $999/mo: $0.13/CU, 128 GB RAM, account manager | Premium $500+/mo (annual only): 600,000+ credits, live chat unlocked here | — |
| Premium-site multiplierPlan credit math assumes 1 credit; premium sites break it | None, same CU rate everywhere | 2 to 10 credits per run on Amazon, LinkedIn, Cloudflare sites | Apify |
| 10 standard pages daily for a yearBrowse AI wins at light standard-site volume | About $7.30 compute plus $348/yr Starter subscription | About $228/yr on Personal annual (12,000 credits covers 3,650 runs) | Browse AI |
| 100,000 LinkedIn profiles/monthLinkedIn is premium; Browse AI cannot run this reliably | About $38 compute plus $199 Scale = about $237/mo | About 500,000 credits/mo (5 each), exceeds Premium; not viable | Apify |
| One-off 5,000 Amazon rowsApify pay-as-you-go beats expiring plan credits | 5 to 10 CUs, about $1 to $2 compute, covered by Starter | About 1,000 credits (500 rows credits times 2 premium); needs Personal monthly | Apify |
Prices checked June 2026 on apify.com/pricing, browse.ai/pricing and help.browse.ai. Apify monthly credits do not roll over, and Apify Store Actors may add per-result fees on top of CU consumption. Browse AI Professional tier names above $87 are unconfirmed.
Pick by scenario
Choose Apify if…
- You have a developer who can write JS or Python and want 38,000+ Actors plus custom scrapers
- You scrape at volume, since above roughly 50,000 rows a month the CU model beats credits
- You need stealth scraping on LinkedIn, Amazon or TikTok with built-in residential proxies
- Your stack is code-first: REST API, SDKs, Git sync, n8n node and webhook pipelines
- GDPR and EU compliance matter, since Apify is headquartered in Prague with an EU legal entity
Choose Browse AI if…
- You have no developer and need a scraper running today in 5 to 10 minutes
- Change monitoring is your main need, with the best no-code hourly and daily alert UX
- You scrape standard sites at low volume, where the $19/mo annual plan is cheapest
- Your workflow is Google Sheets or Airtable, with native real-time sync
- Non-technical teammates manage robots, since 250+ prebuilt ones need zero training
Frequently asked questions
Apify vs Browse AI, which is better for beginners?
Browse AI wins for beginners. The point-and-click robot builder needs no coding and gets a scraper working in 5 to 10 minutes on standard sites. Apify asks you to understand compute units, proxy configuration and JSON inputs even for prebuilt Actors, so a non-technical user should budget 3 to 4 hours for onboarding. If you have never scraped before and do not have a developer on hand, start with Browse AI. Once you hit a real technical requirement or scale up, Apify becomes the stronger long-term home.Is Apify free?
Yes. Apify has a perpetual free plan with $5 in monthly platform credits, 25 concurrent runs and community support, no credit card required. That $5 is enough to test several Actors and extract 5,000 to 10,000 data points. Once the credits run out, the free plan charges $0.20 per compute unit for extra usage. For regular production work the Starter plan at $29 a month is the minimum viable paid tier. The free plan is genuinely useful for evaluation rather than a crippled trial.Is Browse AI free?
Yes, Browse AI has a free plan with 50 credits a month, 2 websites, 3 users and unlimited robots, no credit card required. At 1 credit per 10 rows, 50 credits equals about 500 rows a month. That is viable only for testing or very light monitoring, around 1 to 2 pages a week. Production use needs the Personal plan at $19 a month on annual billing or $48 a month month-to-month. Watch for premium sites, which spend 2 to 10 credits per run and drain a free plan almost instantly.Apify vs Browse AI vs Octoparse, which is cheapest for monitoring 20 competitor prices daily?
For 20 standard-site pages monitored daily, Browse AI Personal annual at $19 a month (12,000 credits a year) covers around 3,287 runs a month at 1 credit each, which is adequate. Apify Starter at $29 a month also works but costs $10 more at this small scale. Octoparse free covers 5 robots and 10,000 rows a month, comparable to Browse AI free but with weaker monitoring alerts. The winner is Browse AI Personal annual for standard, low-volume monitoring. If any of those 20 sites are premium, like Amazon or LinkedIn, factor in the 2 to 10 times credit multiplier.How do you migrate from Browse AI to Apify?
There is no native migration tool, so plan a manual rebuild. Export your Browse AI robot configs as CSV or JSON from the dashboard, then find the equivalent Apify Actor for each target site (search apify.com/actors by site name, since most major sites have a dedicated Actor). Re-map your output field names in Apify's dataset schema, recreate your schedules in the Apify scheduler, and update any webhooks or Zapier triggers to use Apify dataset endpoints. The key difference: Browse AI stores results in robot history, while Apify stores them in named Datasets queryable via API. Budget 1 to 3 hours per robot depending on complexity.What is the cheapest way to scrape 100,000 LinkedIn profiles?
Browse AI is not viable here. LinkedIn is a premium site at a minimum of 2 to 10 credits per run, so 100,000 profiles at an average of 5 credits is about 500,000 credits a month, which exceeds even the Premium plan allocation in a single month. Apify can do it with a LinkedIn Actor and residential proxies: roughly 240 compute units a month at $0.16 on the Scale plan is about $38 in compute plus the $199 plan, around $237 a month total. PhantomBuster is another LinkedIn-specific option. The cheapest viable route at this scale is Apify Scale.Does Apify or Browse AI support real-time website monitoring?
Neither offers true real-time monitoring. Apify has no fixed minimum: you can set a cron schedule down to minutes, but running that often consumes compute units continuously and gets expensive. Browse AI's minimum monitoring interval is 1 hour, fixed on every plan, with no faster option. For near-real-time needs, Apify with a 5-minute cron is technically possible but costly, and Browse AI simply cannot go below the hourly mark. For flash sales or breaking-news monitoring, neither is ideal, and Apify is the only one that can be pushed closer.Apify vs Browse AI for e-commerce price tracking?
Browse AI wins for small-scale no-code price tracking of standard e-commerce sites, with prebuilt Amazon, eBay and Shopify robots, native Airtable sync and change-detection alerts. The catch is that Amazon and eBay are premium sites at 2 to 10 credits per task, which limits scale. Apify wins for high-volume tracking above 50,000 products a month through its Amazon Actor (193,000+ users, maintained by the Apify team) with CU pricing that scales linearly. So Browse AI for a handful of products with alerts, Apify once the catalogue gets large.Is Browse AI GDPR compliant?
Browse AI is a US-based company. Its website describes GDPR compliance features, but we could not independently confirm a dedicated EU legal entity or EU-located data processing by default, so treat that as unverified beyond its own claims. Apify is headquartered in Prague, Czech Republic, all EU customers contract with the EU legal entity, and it publishes GDPR documentation with a GDPR audit document available under NDA. For EU-regulated use cases, Apify has the stronger documented compliance posture. If data residency is a hard requirement, that difference matters.Apify vs Browse AI for a non-technical sales team doing lead generation?
Browse AI is the better fit. A sales team can use the 250+ prebuilt robots, covering sources like ZoomInfo, Apollo, Clearbit and Google Maps, and pipe results straight into Google Sheets or Airtable with no developer involvement. The Zapier integration connects directly to CRMs like HubSpot without code. Apify is more powerful but needs technical setup per data source. One honest caveat: LinkedIn scraping on Browse AI is blocked by anti-bot protections at scale, so for LinkedIn-heavy lead gen, PhantomBuster or the Apollo direct API are better choices.
Test both, then decide
Free to start on either side. The fastest way to know is to rebuild one real scrape on each.
Best for developers, high-volume scraping, stealth on anti-bot sites and code-first pipelines. Free plan with $5 credits a month, no card.
Try Apify for free →Read the full Apify review →Best for non-technical teams who want change monitoring running today on standard sites. Free plan with 50 credits a month, no card.
Try Browse AI for free →Read the full Browse AI review →Affiliate links: if you sign up through them, you support our independent hands-on tests at no extra cost to you. We score both tools the same way and disclose the weak spots on each, including the premium-site surcharge on the tool we link first.
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