UltraWebScrapingAPI vs Apify
Apify is a scraping platform. We're an anti-bot bypass API.
Different tools for different problems.
The Short Version
Apify is an excellent platform for building and running web scrapers. It's not an anti-bot service. Community actors claim to scrape protected sites, but they break every time the anti-bot system updates. UltraWebScrapingAPI is purpose-built for the sites Apify actors can't handle.
Fundamentally Different Products
| Aspect | UltraWebScrapingAPI | Apify |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Anti-bot bypass API | Scraping platform & marketplace |
| Anti-bot approach | Per-site reverse engineering | Community actors (DIY) |
| Akamai Bot Manager | 99%+ | Fails |
| DataDome | 99%+ | Fails |
| Kasada | 99%+ | Fails |
| PerimeterX (HUMAN) | 99%+ | Fails |
| Bypass maintenance | We handle it | You or actor author |
| Uptime guarantee | 99.9% | Depends on actor |
The Apify Actor Problem
Community actors break constantly
Anti-bot systems update their detection regularly. A community actor that worked last month may return empty HTML today. The author may have moved on, abandoned the project, or doesn't have time to keep up with Akamai's latest detection rules.
No anti-bot expertise
Apify provides the platform — compute, storage, scheduling. They don't provide anti-bot bypass technology. That's left to individual actor authors, most of whom use basic Puppeteer/Playwright without any fingerprint evasion.
You're on your own when it breaks
When an Apify actor fails on an anti-bot site, your options are: wait for the author to fix it, fork and fix it yourself, or find another actor. With UltraWebScrapingAPI, we monitor and fix bypasses within hours of detection changes.
Pricing Comparison
| Metric | UltraWebScrapingAPI | Apify |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | $0.05/request | $49/mo + compute + proxy costs |
| Anti-bot sites success | 99.9% | 0% on advanced protection |
| Minimum purchase | $20 | $49/mo subscription |
| Hidden costs | None | Proxy fees, compute overages, actor fees |
| Maintenance effort | Zero | Debug broken actors, update code, manage proxies |
Where Apify Wins
- Custom scraper development — Build any scraper with full control over logic and data extraction
- Actor marketplace — Thousands of pre-built scrapers for common sites
- Scheduling & storage — Built-in cron jobs, datasets, key-value stores
- Unprotected sites — Excellent for sites without anti-bot protection
- Data transformation — Process, clean, and export data in any format
Use Apify + UltraWebScrapingAPI Together
The best setup: use Apify as your scraping orchestration platform, and call UltraWebScrapingAPI for the URLs that need anti-bot bypass.
// Inside your Apify actor
const response = await fetch('https://api.ultrawebscrapingapi.com/scrape', {
method: 'POST',
headers: {
'x-api-key': 'YOUR_API_KEY',
'Content-Type': 'application/json',
},
body: JSON.stringify({ url: targetUrl }),
});
const html = await response.text();Apify handles scheduling, storage, and data processing. We handle the anti-bot bypass. Each tool does what it's best at.
Related Resources
Apify actor returning empty pages?
The site probably has advanced anti-bot protection. Test the URL in our playground — free, instant.
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