Apify
Apify is a web scraping and automation platform with thousands of ready-made 'Actors' that plug into n8n workflows for data extraction at scale.
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Best use case with n8n
Large-scale and pre-built web scraping — running ready-made Actors for sites like Google Maps, Instagram, and marketplaces, then piping the data into n8n.
Apify is a full web-scraping platform built around Actors — pre-built, configurable scrapers for popular websites. Instead of writing and maintaining your own scraper, you run a battle-tested Actor and pipe the results straight into n8n.
Why use Apify with n8n
Scraping at scale means dealing with JavaScript-rendered pages, proxies, rate limits, and anti-bot defenses. Apify handles all of that. n8n then orchestrates what happens next — enrich the data, dedupe it, store it, and notify your team.
Popular Actors
Google Maps Scraper, Instagram Scraper, Google Search Results, Website Content Crawler, and the Contact Details Scraper are among the most-used for lead gen and research.
How the integration works
- Trigger an Actor run from n8n (Apify node → "Run Actor").
- Apify scrapes in the cloud, handling proxies and retries.
- n8n receives the dataset (or an Apify webhook fires on completion).
- You process, enrich, and route the data — CRM, Airtable, Sheets, or Slack.
Pricing model
Apify bills on compute units (CU) plus proxy and storage usage:
| Plan | Monthly | Includes |
|---|---|---|
| Free | $0 | $5 platform credit, limited concurrency |
| Starter | ~$39 | More credit, more concurrent runs |
| Scale | ~$199 | High-volume scraping & proxies |
Scrape responsibly
Always respect each website's Terms of Service, robots.txt, and applicable privacy laws (GDPR/CCPA) when scraping or contacting people.
Apify vs Firecrawl
- Apify wins for pre-built scrapers of specific sites and large-scale, scheduled jobs with proxy rotation.
- Firecrawl wins when you want clean, LLM-ready markdown from arbitrary pages for AI/RAG pipelines.
Many builders use both — Apify for structured site data, Firecrawl for AI ingestion.
Scrape at scale with Apify
Run ready-made Actors and feed the data into n8n.
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Tips
- Use webhooks for long runs instead of waiting synchronously in n8n.
- Page through datasets to avoid loading huge payloads at once.
- Set max results / timeouts on Actors to control cost.
- Cache results in a database to avoid re-scraping the same data.
Key features
- Apify Store: 4,000+ ready-made Actors
- Headless Chrome & Playwright scraping
- Residential & datacenter proxy management
- Dataset storage and exports (JSON, CSV, Excel)
- Native n8n Apify node + webhook integration
- Scheduling, retries, and run monitoring
Pros & cons
Pros
- Huge library of maintained, ready-to-run scrapers
- Handles JavaScript, proxies, and anti-bot at scale
- Saves weeks vs. building scrapers from scratch
- Pay-as-you-go compute model
Cons
- Costs scale with compute units and proxy usage
- Some Actors need configuration and tuning
- Learning curve for custom Actor development
Alternatives
Firecrawl turns websites into clean, LLM-ready markdown — a powerful scraping companion for AI workflows and RAG pipelines built in n8n.
Pricing: Free tier (500 credits); Hobby ~$16/mo; Standard ~$83/mo; credits = pages scraped