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What is Apify

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Apify is a cloud platform for web scraping, data extraction, and automation. Everything on it revolves around Actors - serverless programs that run in the cloud. You can run Actors that other people built, build your own, and connect either one to the rest of your stack.

How Apify works

An Actor takes a structured input, does a job such as scraping a website, and stores its results on the platform. You can start an Actor from Apify Console, the API, or a schedule. For the full model, see Actors.

Because every Actor shares this input > run > output model, they compose. One Actor's output can feed another, results flow into integrations like Make, Zapier, or n8n, and you can call any Actor from your code like a regular API.

Actors are the unit of work. The rest of the platform exists to run them, hold what they produce, and connect them to everything else. For how the platform is built, what happens during a run, and how workloads stay isolated, see Platform architecture.

How Actors get to Apify Store

Apify Store holds thousands of public Actors built by Apify and the community. Each one started as code that a developer wrote, deployed to the platform, and published - optionally setting a price, since Store Actors can earn their developers money.

You can stand on either side of that exchange. Run other people's Actors to get data without writing code, or build your own - for yourself, your team, or as a product in Store.

Run your first Actor

The quickest way to understand the platform is to run something. Open Apify Store, pick an Actor, select Start, and watch the results arrive. You don't have to write any code.

Pricing

Running Actors consumes platform usage, such as compute, storage, and proxy traffic. Some Actors charge per event instead, for example per result. Your monthly usage, limits, and available features depend on your subscription plan. For the pricing models, see Actors in Store and Usage and resources.

Next steps

Pick the path that matches what you want to do. Each one walks you through the loop and points you to the right tutorials and concept pages in order. Check whether an existing Actor covers your use case before you build or hire.

  • Run Actors - use existing Actors from Apify Store to get data or automate a task, no coding required.
  • Build Actors - build, deploy, and publish your own Actor on the Apify platform when no existing Actor fits your use case.
  • Integrate Actors - call Actors from your code, react to runs with webhooks, and connect your workflow tools and data stores.
  • Connect an AI agent - give an agent or coding assistant access to Actors.

If no existing Actor fits your needs and you don't want to build one, Apify Professional Services builds, runs, and maintains a custom solution for you under a service-level agreement.

To learn web scraping, see the free courses in Apify Academy.