Open-source alternatives to Apify

Compare community-driven replacements for Apify in web scraping & crawling workflows. We curate active, self-hostable options with transparent licensing so you can evaluate the right fit quickly.

Apify

Apify lets you build and run ‘Actors’ to scrape websites, automate workflows, and integrate results with APIs and databases—scaling locally or in the cloud.Read more

Web Scraping & Crawling

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Key stats

13Alternatives
1Support self-hosting
Run on infrastructure you control
12Active development
Recent commits in the last 6 months
11Permissive licenses
MIT, Apache, and similar licenses

Counts reflect projects currently indexed as alternatives to Apify.

All open-source alternatives

AutoScraper

Automatic, fast, lightweight web scraper that learns from examples

Permissive licenseIntegration-friendlyAI-powered workflowsPython

Why teams choose it

Learn extraction rules from a few sample values
Support both similar and exact result retrieval
Save and load trained models for reuse

Watch for

Cannot scrape content rendered by JavaScript

Migration highlight

Gather related StackOverflow question titles

Generate a list of similar question titles from any StackOverflow page with a single function call.

AnyCrawl

High-performance web, site, and SERP crawler with AI extraction

Active developmentPermissive licenseFast to deployTypeScript

Why teams choose it

Multi‑engine SERP crawling with Google support
Threaded and process‑based crawling for bulk workloads
LLM‑friendly JSON schema extraction

Watch for

SERP support limited to Google at present

Migration highlight

Generate LLM training data

Extract structured JSON from product pages to feed language models

Apache Nutch

Scalable, extensible Java web crawler for large‑scale data collection

Active developmentPermissive licenseIntegration-friendlyJava

Why teams choose it

Plugin architecture for custom parsing, indexing, and fetching
Native Hadoop integration for distributed crawling
Configurable via nutch-site.xml with support for multiple protocols

Watch for

Steep learning curve for configuration and plugin development

Migration highlight

Academic web‑graph research

Generate a comprehensive link graph for citation analysis

Crawlee

Build fast, human-like web scrapers with a single library

Active developmentPermissive licenseFast to deployTypeScript

Why teams choose it

Single interface for HTTP and headless‑browser crawling
Persistent URL queue with breadth‑first and depth‑first options
Pluggable storage for datasets and file assets

Watch for

Requires Node.js 16+; adding Playwright increases install size

Migration highlight

E‑commerce price monitoring

Continuously extract product listings, prices, and availability, storing results in a dataset for price‑trend analysis.

WebMagic

Scalable Java crawler framework with flexible API and annotations

Active developmentPermissive licenseFast to deployJava

Why teams choose it

Simple core with high flexibility
POJO annotation for configuration‑free crawlers
Built‑in multi‑thread and distributed support

Watch for

Java‑only limits language choice

Migration highlight

GitHub repository metadata extraction

Collect author, repository name, and README content for analytics dashboards

Scrapling

Adaptive web scraping that survives site changes effortlessly

Active developmentPermissive licenseIntegration-friendlyPython

Why teams choose it

Adaptive selectors that auto‑relocate after site redesigns
Stealthy and dynamic fetchers with headless browser support
Async session management for concurrent high‑volume scraping

Watch for

Browser‑based fetchers add runtime dependencies

Migration highlight

E‑commerce price monitoring

Continues to collect product prices even after the retailer redesigns its layout, eliminating selector rewrites.

Firecrawl

Turn any website into clean, LLM‑ready data instantly

Active developmentPrivacy-firstIntegration-friendlyTypeScript

Why teams choose it

Multi‑format scraping (markdown, HTML, screenshots, structured data)
Full‑site crawling with depth control and async batch jobs
AI‑powered extraction and change tracking

Watch for

Self‑hosting still in development

Migration highlight

Chatbot with up‑to‑date website knowledge

Generates accurate answers using the latest site content fetched in markdown

Maxun

Train a web‑scraping robot in minutes, no code required

Self-host friendlyActive developmentPrivacy-firstTypeScript

Why teams choose it

No‑code robot builder with visual workflow
Built‑in handling of pagination, infinite scroll, and login
Scheduled runs with automatic API or spreadsheet export

Watch for

Self‑hosting requires setting up multiple services (Postgres, MinIO, Redis, etc.)

Migration highlight

E‑commerce price monitoring

Generate daily price tables from competitor websites automatically

Colly

Fast, elegant web scraping framework for Go developers

Active developmentPermissive licenseIntegration-friendlyGo

Why teams choose it

Clean, declarative Go API
High throughput (>1k requests/sec per core)
Automatic cookie and session handling

Watch for

Requires familiarity with Go language

Migration highlight

Website content archiving

Capture and store static snapshots of target sites for preservation

LLM Scraper

Extract structured data from any webpage using LLMs

Active developmentPermissive licenseIntegration-friendlyTypeScript

Why teams choose it

Multi‑model support: GPT, Sonnet, Gemini, Llama, Qwen, etc.
Schema definition with Zod or JSON Schema and full TypeScript safety
Playwright‑based page handling with HTML, raw HTML, markdown, text, and image modes

Watch for

Requires Playwright and a headless browser setup

Migration highlight

News aggregation

Extract top stories, scores, authors, and comment links from news sites into a structured JSON feed.

Katana

Fast, configurable web crawler with headless and JavaScript support

Active developmentPermissive licenseFast to deployGo

Why teams choose it

Standard and headless crawling modes
JavaScript parsing and jsluice support
Automatic form filling and extraction

Watch for

Requires Go 1.24+ for source installation

Migration highlight

Comprehensive site map generation for penetration testing

Produces a JSON list of all reachable URLs, paths, and resources across the target domain.

ScrapeGraphAI

LLM‑powered web scraping pipelines in just five lines of code

Active developmentPermissive licenseIntegration-friendlyPython

Why teams choose it

Prompt‑driven scraping pipelines requiring minimal code
Multi‑page and parallel graph execution for higher throughput
Supports major LLM providers and local Ollama models

Watch for

Requires LLM API keys or local model setup, adding cost or complexity

Migration highlight

Extract company profiles from competitor websites

Structured JSON containing description, founders, and social media links

Scrapy

Fast, high-level Python framework for web crawling and scraping

Active developmentPermissive licensePrivacy-firstPython

Why teams choose it

Asynchronous request handling with Twisted
Extensible middleware and item pipelines
Built‑in selectors using XPath and CSS

Watch for

Steeper learning curve for beginners

Migration highlight

E‑commerce price monitoring

Automated daily extraction of product prices across competitor sites, feeding a pricing dashboard.

Choosing a web scraping & crawling alternative

Teams replacing Apify in web scraping & crawling workflows typically weigh self-hosting needs, integration coverage, and licensing obligations.

1 project let you self-host and keep customer data on infrastructure you control.
12 options are actively maintained with recent commits.

Tip: shortlist one hosted and one self-hosted option so stakeholders can compare trade-offs before migrating away from Apify.

Apify

Apify lets you build and run ‘Actors’ to scrape websites, automate workflows, and integrate results with APIs and databases—scaling locally or in the cloud.Read more

Web Scraping & Crawling

Visit Alternative Website

Key stats

13Alternatives
1Support self-hosting
Run on infrastructure you control
12Active development
Recent commits in the last 6 months
11Permissive licenses
MIT, Apache, and similar licenses

Counts reflect projects currently indexed as alternatives to Apify.

Common questions

Do I need an API key to use Firecrawl?

Yes, you must sign up on Firecrawl and obtain an API key for authenticated requests.

Answer surfaced from Firecrawl

What Python versions does Scrapy support?

Scrapy requires Python 3.9 or newer and is compatible with all later 3.x releases.

Answer surfaced from Scrapy

How does Scrapling's adaptive selector feature work?

When `adaptive=True` is set, Scrapling analyzes the page structure and attempts to locate the target element even if its original CSS or XPath path has changed, using similarity heuristics.

Answer surfaced from Scrapling