Apify vs Thordata 2026
Short answer: pick Apify if you want ready-made scrapers, scheduling and AI connectors out of the box, pick Thordata only if you already code scrapers and need the cheapest rotating residential proxies. Apify sweeps our scoring 4.2/5 to 2.9/5, and the gap is mostly trust and support, not raw features.
The catch nobody updated: Apify retires its rental Actors on October 1, 2026 and moves everything to pay-per-event, so audit your Actor costs before the deadline. Thordata's only real edge is price, around 7 times cheaper than Bright Data at 1 TB, but its Trustpilot rating was suspended for fake reviews and it ships no published SLA. That asymmetry decides this match.
15,000+ ready Actors, scheduling, AI connectors. The full platform pick.
Try Apify for free →Read the full Apify review →Cheapest residential proxies, but a Trustpilot suspension and no SLA.
Discover Thordata →Read the full Thordata review →Who wins for you
15,000+ production Actors, REST API, webhooks and June 2026 MCP connectors do far more than rent you IPs.
Try Apify for free →Thordata at $0.65 to $2.00/GB is hard to beat on raw price. Apify proxies are a cost add-on, not the core.
Discover Thordata →SOC2 Type II, maintained Actors and tiered support outclass Thordata's 2.4/5 support and missing SLA.
Try Apify for free →Per-GB pricing beats compute units for bulk, low-complexity pulls, if you accept the billing and trust caveats.
Discover Thordata →Apify vs Thordata at a glance
Every cell below is grounded in each tool's official pricing and docs as of June 2026. They sell different things, so read the category row first: one is a scraping platform, the other a proxy network.
| Apify | Thordata | Edge | |
|---|---|---|---|
| CategoryDifferent jobs, not strict substitutes | Full scraping and automation platform | Budget proxy network plus scraper APIs | — |
| Overall Hack'celeration score | 4.2 / 5 | 2.9 / 5 | Apify |
| Community reviews | 4.9 / 5 from 15 G2 and Capterra reviews | No valid score: Trustpilot suspended, G2 around 2 reviews | Apify |
| Founded | 2015, Prague | Around 2018, Hong Kong | — |
| Scraper / Actor library | 15,000+ Actors in the Store | 120+ prebuilt scraper APIs | Apify |
| Proxy typesProxies are Thordata's specialty | Residential, datacenter, ISP via Apify Proxy, billed within compute units | Residential, mobile, ISP, datacenter, the core product | Thordata |
| Entry paid price | $29/mo Starter, plus compute units | $2.00/GB pay-as-you-go, no minimum | Thordata |
| Residential proxy rate | Built in, billed as data traffic inside compute units | $0.65 to $2.00/GB depending on volume | Thordata |
| Compliance | SOC2 Type II, GDPR, CCPA | Not documented publicly | Apify |
| Support score | 4.0 / 5, tiered chat and priority engineers | 2.4 / 5, multi-day waits, no published SLA | Apify |
| No-code integrations | REST API, webhooks, Zapier, Make, n8n, LangChain, MCP | HTTP proxy and code samples, no native Zapier or Make connector | Apify |
| Billing trust | Clean, layered compute-unit model is complex but transparent | Trustpilot suspended for fake reviews, billing complaints documented | Apify |
| 2026 change | Rental Actors retire to pay-per-event on October 1, 2026 | 3rd anniversary promo, extra 10% off on 1 to 350 GB tiers | — |
Prices checked June 2026 on apify.com/pricing and thordata.com/pricing. Apify combines a base plan with compute units, Thordata is pure pay-as-you-go per GB, so totals are not directly comparable.
Criterion by criterion, head to head
The same five criteria we scored on each tool's review page. A close score still gets a clear pick.
01 Round 1: getting the first job running.
Apify edges this 3.8 to 3.6, and it is narrower than the gap on every other round. Apify wins the first hour for non-technical users: 15,000+ Actors come with visual input forms, so we launched a scraper in about 20 minutes with no code, testing against the free $5 credits before committing. The cost is a real learning curve once you go custom, since compute units, proxy choices and Actor SDKs all assume technical literacy, and the console can feel cluttered.
Thordata is fast for the right person. Standard proxy auth (username and password or IP whitelist), docs with code samples in 9+ languages, and a no-code Web Scraper dashboard mean a developer who has wired a proxy before is sending requests in roughly 10 minutes. The catch sinks the score: the 1 GB residential trial is not self-service, you have to contact support to claim it, and several users report the process broke or triggered unexpected charges. A rough first impression before you have tested anything.
Choose Apify if your team is non-technical or wants Actor forms over raw proxy code.
Choose Thordata if you already know proxies and want to be sending requests in 10 minutes.
02 Round 2: where the bill actually lands.
Apify takes this 4.0 to 3.5, but the picture splits by use case. Apify Scale at $199/month gives you $199 in credits at $0.16/CU and is at its best above 100K monthly extractions. The layered model (compute units plus per-event Actor fees) is the most common complaint, since unaware users see unpredictable spikes. Still, it is transparent and competitive at volume.
Thordata owns the pure proxy-price argument, and this is its one genuine edge. Residential proxies at $0.65/GB at the 5 TB tier sit against Bright Data at $5.04+/GB. Worked example: 1 TB of residential at $0.73/GB is about $730 a month, versus roughly $5,040 on Bright Data, nearly 7 times cheaper. That is a real number. The bémol is just as real: documented billing complaints, charges after a free trial that should have been free, and refunds reported as difficult. A cheap proxy that bills you for a trial you thought was free is not cheap, which is why the 3.5 sits below Apify's 4.0 despite the lower headline price.
Choose Apify if you want a transparent platform value at 100K+ extractions a month.
Choose Thordata if proxy volume on a budget is the whole job and you meter your spend tightly.
03 Round 3: raw power and reliability.
Apify wins this clearly, 4.5 to 3.4. The Store packs 15,000+ production-tested Actors, SOC2 Type II compliance, scheduling, chaining, 15+ export formats, a full SDK in JavaScript and Python, and AI agent MCP connectors that launched June 9, 2026 to wire Actors into Claude and ChatGPT. The one thing to plan for: rental Actors sunset October 2026 and move to pay-per-event, so audit any Actor on fixed rental pricing before the deadline.
Thordata's breadth is real on paper: four proxy types, 120+ prebuilt scraper APIs, a SERP API, a Web Unlocker, a Scraping Browser and prebuilt datasets. What caps the score is consistency. Independent testing flags IP quality inconsistency, SSL errors and geo-mismatch where IPs resolve to the wrong country, and unreliable access to heavily protected targets, with Instagram and Google AdSense named specifically. The proxies work well on easy public targets and get shaky on the hard ones, which is exactly where reliability matters most.
Choose Apify for full-stack scraping, custom Actor development and AI pipelines.
Choose Thordata for raw proxy infrastructure aimed at code-first teams on easy targets.
04 Round 4: who answers when it breaks.
This is the most decisive round, 4.0 to 2.4. Apify runs tiered support: a community Discord with 8,000+ developers on the free plan, chat from Starter ($29+), priority chat on Scale ($199+) and a dedicated account manager on Business ($999+). The engineers understand the product and reply with code examples, not copy-paste scripts.
Thordata advertises 24/7 support and a confirmed email channel, and some users genuinely get fast help. But support is the most cited complaint across every platform we checked: multi-day waits, account managers who go unresponsive, and no published SLA to hold them to when a scrape breaks at 2 AM. Worse, the complaints concentrate on billing, the free-trial dispute is reported as hard to win through support, and the Trustpilot suspension for fake reviews removes the one public sample you might have used to reassure yourself. Anyone routing production scraping through Thordata needs a fallback plan and a backup provider in reserve.
Choose Apify if you want a support paper trail from Discord to priority engineers.
Choose Thordata only if you can self-serve via docs and tolerate variable support with no SLA.
05 Round 5: plugging into your stack.
Apify wins this 4.5 to 3.2. It ships a REST API with official JavaScript and Python SDKs, webhooks into Slack, Make, n8n and Zapier, a GitHub integration that auto-creates issues on run failure, Git import from GitHub, GitLab and Bitbucket, and Airbyte and Keboola for data warehouses. The 2026 highlight is the MCP connectors that let AI agents like Claude and ChatGPT trigger Actors and reach authenticated apps inside one workflow.
Thordata is solid for code-first teams: a standard HTTP(S) proxy endpoint, code samples in 9+ languages (Python, Node.js, Go, Java, PHP, C#), Puppeteer, Playwright, Selenium and Scrapy support, anti-detect browser integrations (AdsPower, BitBrowser, GoLogin), a Chrome extension and a community n8n workflow. The gap is no-code: there is no native Zapier or Make connector, so growth and automation teams orchestrating data flows have to build custom HTTP steps. That single missing piece narrows Thordata's audience to developers, which is exactly the audience that cares least about the no-code price advantage.
Choose Apify if you live in no-code or low-code (Zapier, Make) or AI agent stacks.
Choose Thordata if you wire proxies into custom code and do not need native no-code apps.
The real cost, plan by plan
Two pricing models that do not map onto each other: Apify is base plan plus compute units, Thordata is per GB or per 1,000 requests. We list the plans, then run the exact cost examples the data supports, assumptions stated.
| Apify | Thordata | Edge | |
|---|---|---|---|
| FreeApify free tier is self-service, Thordata trial is not | $0 with $5 platform credits, 25 concurrent runs, 8 GB RAM | 1 GB residential trial, but support-gated and a documented complaint vector | Apify |
| Entry planDifferent units entirely | Starter $29/mo, $29 credits, $0.20/CU | $2.00/GB residential at 1 GB, pay-as-you-go | — |
| Mid plan | Scale $199/mo, $199 credits, $0.16/CU, 32 GB RAM | $1.00/GB at 150 GB, $0.80/GB at 350 GB | — |
| High volumeThordata is built for cheap proxy bandwidth at scale | Business $999/mo, $999 credits, $0.13/CU, account manager | $0.73/GB at 1 TB, $0.65/GB at 5 TB | Thordata |
| Scraper API | Via Store Actors, compute units plus per-event fees | Web Scraper API from $0.50 per 1,000 results | Thordata |
| SERPThordata is the cheaper direct path for SERP only | Google SERP Actors, billed via compute units and per-event fees | SERP API from $0.70 per 1,000 responses | Thordata |
| Apify: 50K TikTok profiles on ScalePer-result Actor fee varies after the October 2026 PPE migration | $199 base + ~240 CU x $0.16 = $38.40 + per-result fee post-PPE = ~$237 to $287/mo | Not the comparable job, Thordata sells proxies not a TikTok Actor | Apify |
| Thordata: 1 TB residential per monthThe killer number: nearly 7x cheaper than Bright Data at 1 TB | Proxies billed inside compute units, not directly comparable per GB | 1,000 GB x $0.73 = $730/mo, versus ~$5,040 on Bright Data | Thordata |
Prices checked June 2026. Apify rental Actors retire to pay-per-event on October 1, 2026, so verify specific Actor pricing after the deadline. Some older Thordata third-party listings quote $0.65/GB as an entry price, but the live page shows that rate only at the 5 TB tier, so check the current page before budgeting.
Pick by scenario
Choose Apify if…
- You need production-tested scrapers for Google Maps, TikTok, LinkedIn or Amazon running in 20 minutes, not weeks
- Your team runs scheduled high-volume extraction (100K+ data points a month) and needs SOC2 compliance and uptime
- You are building AI agent workflows and want native MCP connectors into Claude, ChatGPT and VS Code
- You need a support paper trail, from community Discord to priority engineers, when a job breaks in production
- You want one platform for scraping, storage, scheduling, export and integration without assembling your own stack
Choose Thordata if…
- You already have scraper code and just need the cheapest credible rotating residential proxies, $0.65 to $2.00/GB
- You scrape mostly public, easy targets where a small failure rate is acceptable and retries are built in
- Your team is code-first and comfortable wiring proxies into Python, Node.js, Go or Java without a no-code wrapper
- You want a SERP API or Web Unlocker at $0.70 to $1.00 per 1,000 responses with no monthly minimum
- You are running an early budget pilot, with metered spend and close billing monitoring on your specific targets
Frequently asked questions
Apify vs Thordata: which is better for web scraping in 2026?
They solve different problems. Apify (4.2/5) is a full scraping platform with 15,000+ ready-made Actors, scheduling and AI integrations, best for teams that want end-to-end infrastructure. Thordata (2.9/5) is a budget proxy network plus scraper API, best for price-driven teams who write their own scrapers and need cheap rotating IPs. If you want scraping with minimal setup, choose Apify. If you already code scrapers and only need the cheapest residential proxies, Thordata competes on price, with the trust and support caveats that pull its score down.Is Thordata cheap enough to replace Bright Data?
On raw price, yes. Thordata at $0.65/GB at the 5 TB tier sits against Bright Data at $5.04+/GB, roughly an 8 times difference at volume, and 1 TB of residential costs about $730 a month versus around $5,040 on Bright Data. But Thordata's Trustpilot rating was suspended for fake reviews, billing complaints are documented, and IP quality is reported as inconsistent on hard targets. For budget pilots on easy public targets, Thordata can save thousands a month. For production-critical scraping, Bright Data's premium is often justified by its reliability and support.Apify vs Thordata vs Bright Data: which should you choose?
Apify wins when you need prebuilt scrapers plus a platform plus AI integrations. Bright Data wins when you need maximum proxy reliability, enterprise support and massive scale. Thordata wins only on headline price for residential proxies. The clean way to think about it: Apify is the scraping platform, Bright Data is the premium proxy infrastructure, and Thordata is the budget proxy option with documented trust caveats. Most teams pick Apify for the all-in-one workflow and reach for a dedicated proxy provider only when they have outgrown what a platform bundles in.How do you migrate from Thordata to Apify?
It is a re-architecture, not a swap. Thordata is a proxy and API layer you integrate into your own scraper code, while Apify replaces that code with Actors, prebuilt or custom-built with the SDK. To migrate: first, identify which Thordata prebuilt scrapers you use and find equivalent Apify Store Actors. Second, rewrite custom scrapers as Apify Actors using Crawlee. Third, move proxy configuration from Thordata credentials to Apify Proxy settings. The payoff is built-in scheduling, storage, webhooks and AI integrations out of the box. Cost typically rises, but operational overhead drops noticeably.What is the cheapest setup for AI scraping in 2026?
For bulk public data, the lowest cost is Thordata residential pay-as-you-go at $0.65/GB at the 5 TB tier plus your own scraper code, as long as you accept no SLA, no native Zapier or Make integration, and the documented billing risk. For the best cost-to-reliability ratio, Apify Scale at $199/month covers compute, scheduling and Actors for teams doing 100K to 500K monthly extractions. For AI agent pipelines specifically, Apify's MCP connectors (June 2026) make it the only option here with native Claude and ChatGPT integration, so the cheapest credible setup depends on whether reliability or raw per-GB price matters more.Does Thordata offer a free trial?
Thordata advertises a 1 GB residential trial and a SERP API free trial, but neither is fully self-service: you have to contact support to claim them rather than activating from the dashboard. More importantly, multiple users report being charged despite following the advertised free-trial process, with refunds described as difficult to obtain. Treat any Thordata trial as a paid evaluation in practice: cap your spend, keep billing records, and verify the terms in writing before you start. Apify, by contrast, has a self-service free plan with $5 in credits and no card required.Apify vs Thordata for SERP scraping: which wins?
For SERP specifically, Thordata's SERP API at $0.70 per 1,000 responses pay-as-you-go is very competitive on price. Apify has Google Search Results Scrapers in its Store, but charges via compute units plus per-event Actor fees, which makes cost estimation less direct. If SERP is your primary use case and you are comfortable with pay-as-you-go APIs, Thordata's SERP API is the cheaper path. If SERP is one of many data needs inside a broader pipeline, Apify's Actor ecosystem and scheduling are more convenient, so the answer hinges on whether SERP is the whole job or one piece of it.Apify vs Thordata: which handles anti-bot protection better?
Apify handles anti-bot through built-in residential proxy rotation inside Actors, browser fingerprinting and smart retry logic, maintained by Apify and Actor developers for each target site, with tough targets like TikTok reported at 95%+ success in our review testing. Thordata offers a Web Unlocker, a Scraping Browser and CAPTCHA solving, but independent tests show it struggles with heavily protected platforms, with Instagram and Google AdSense named specifically. For anti-bot robustness, Apify's maintained Actor ecosystem has the clear edge, while Thordata is better suited to public, lightly protected targets.What are the main risks of choosing Thordata over Apify?
Five stand out. First, billing trust: the Trustpilot rating was suspended for fake reviews and free-trial billing complaints are documented. Second, no SLA: if something breaks in production, you have no guaranteed response time. Third, IP quality inconsistency: SSL errors and geo-mismatch are reported in independent testing. Fourth, no Zapier or Make connector, so automation teams must build custom HTTP steps. Fifth, the 2.4/5 support score, the lowest of the five criteria. The right mitigation is to start with a small metered pay-as-you-go spend, test on your actual targets, and keep a backup provider for production-critical jobs.Is Apify free to use?
Apify has a lifetime free plan with no credit card required. It includes $5 in monthly platform credits at $0.20/CU, 25 concurrent runs and 8 GB RAM, enough to test two or three Actors and extract roughly 5,000 to 10,000 data points depending on complexity. Free users get community Discord support. After the $5 credits run out, you pay $0.20/CU on demand. For regular use above testing, Starter at $29/month is the first paid tier, with cheaper compute-unit rates as you move up to Scale and Business. Thordata has no comparable self-service free plan, only a support-gated trial.
Test both, then decide
The fastest way to know is to run one real job on each: a prebuilt Actor on Apify, a metered proxy test on Thordata.
Best for teams wanting ready-made scrapers, scheduling, AI connectors and real support. Self-service free plan with $5 in credits, no card required.
Try Apify for free →Read the full Apify review →Best for code-first teams that only need the cheapest rotating residential proxies. Pay-as-you-go from $0.65 to $2.00/GB, but meter your spend and watch your billing.
Discover Thordata →Read the full Thordata 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 monetised one.
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