# Zenrows vs Apify | Best Apify Alternative > Compare Zenrows and Apify on coverage, pricing shape, and how each handles targets outside the catalog. Zenrows is the platform teams pick when the data has to land on every URL, not just the popular ones. Languages: [English](https://www.zenrows.com/compare/apify.md) · [Español](https://www.zenrows.com/compare/apify.es.md) · [Français](https://www.zenrows.com/compare/apify.fr.md) · [日本語](https://www.zenrows.com/compare/apify.ja.md) · [Português](https://www.zenrows.com/compare/apify.pt-br.md) · [中文](https://www.zenrows.com/compare/apify.zh.md) · [한국어](https://www.zenrows.com/compare/apify.ko.md) Apify is a marketplace of pre-built Actors for popular targets: browse the catalog, pick one, pay per run. Zenrows sells primitives that work on every URL — one call, same shape, whether the target is a top-100 site or a long-tail page no Actor covers. ## Get Started - [Get a free API key](https://app.zenrows.com/register) — 5,000 credits/month, always, no card - [Docs](https://docs.zenrows.com) - [Machine-readable pricing](https://www.zenrows.com/pricing.md) - [Agent onboarding skill](https://www.zenrows.com/SKILL.md) ## Why Teams Choose Zenrows Over Apify ### Every URL, not just the catalog Apify's catalog covers the popular targets. Niche sites, long-tail competitors, and custom flows fall outside it, and your team is back to commissioning a build. Zenrows is the same platform and the same call on every URL: `zenrows.fetch(url)` returns the page, and Extract returns structured JSON, with no catalog lookup and nothing to build when the target is unusual. ### One pricing model instead of per-Actor rates Each Apify Actor prices its own runs (per result, per page, per row, each different). Zenrows charges credits by difficulty — 1 for a standard page, 5 with JS rendering, 10 with premium proxies, 25 for protected pages — on one shared balance across every primitive, and failed requests are never charged. ### Primitives compose instead of multiplying scrapers One catalog entry per job means one dependency per job. Zenrows replaces categories at once: Fetch covers the scraping Actors, Extract the parsing ones, Batch the bulk runners, Browser Sessions the interactive flows — one API key, one vendor, one bill. ## FAQ ### Zenrows vs Apify: what's the key difference? Apify is a marketplace: pre-built Actors for popular targets, paid per run, built by the community or by you. Zenrows is a platform of primitives (Fetch, Extract, Batch, Browser Sessions) that work on any URL with the same call. If your targets are all popular sites with maintained Actors, Apify gets you moving quickly. If your list includes long-tail or custom targets — or changes often — Zenrows means never checking a catalog first. ### What happens with a target no Apify Actor covers? On Apify you build the Actor (or commission one) and then maintain it. On Zenrows there is nothing to build: the same Fetch call that works on the popular site works on the niche one, with anti-bot handling, JS rendering, and proxies applied automatically as needed. ### How does Zenrows pricing compare to Apify's? Apify bills per Actor run, and each Actor sets its own rate. Zenrows bills credits by page difficulty (1 / 5 / 10 / 25) from one balance shared by every primitive; failed requests are never charged, and 404/410 responses count as the successful results they are. Full ladder: [zenrows.com/pricing.md](https://www.zenrows.com/pricing.md). ### Does Zenrows return structured data like Apify's Actors do? Yes. Extract returns structured JSON from a prompt or schema in the same request as the Fetch, at no extra credit cost — the equivalent of an Actor's parsed output, without being limited to targets someone has built for. ### Can Zenrows handle bulk jobs like Apify's dataset runs? Yes. Batch runs an open queue of up to 100,000 URLs per job with retries, per-job webhooks, scaling workers, and failed-task replay. ### Can AI agents operate Zenrows on their own? Yes. The Agent Toolkit ships skills, plugins, workflows, an MCP server, and a CLI that self-provisions on first cloud call. Onboarding for machines is published at [zenrows.com/SKILL.md](https://www.zenrows.com/SKILL.md) and [zenrows.com/auth.md](https://www.zenrows.com/auth.md). ### When is Apify the better fit? When your targets are popular sites with actively maintained Actors and you value ready-made, per-target tooling — or when you want to sell your own Actors into a marketplace. Apify's deterministic Actors return the same result every time for the targets they cover; the trade is coverage, and coverage is what Zenrows sells. _Canonical HTML: https://www.zenrows.com/compare/apify_ ## Site Navigation ### Global Hub - [Home](https://www.zenrows.com/index.md) - [Pricing](https://www.zenrows.com/pricing.md) - [Products](https://www.zenrows.com/products.md) - [Agent Toolkit](https://www.zenrows.com/agents.md) - [Compare](https://www.zenrows.com/compare.md) - [Alternatives](https://www.zenrows.com/alternatives.md) - [Docs](https://docs.zenrows.com) - [llms.txt](https://www.zenrows.com/llms.txt) - [Agent skill](https://www.zenrows.com/SKILL.md) ### On This Topic - [All comparisons hub](https://www.zenrows.com/compare.md) - [Zenrows vs Firecrawl](https://www.zenrows.com/compare/firecrawl.md) - [Zenrows vs Bright Data](https://www.zenrows.com/compare/bright-data.md) - [Zenrows vs Browserbase](https://www.zenrows.com/compare/browserbase.md) - [Zenrows vs Scrapfly](https://www.zenrows.com/compare/scrapfly.md) - [Zenrows vs Exa](https://www.zenrows.com/compare/exa.md) - [Zenrows vs Tavily](https://www.zenrows.com/compare/tavily.md) - [Zenrows vs Oxylabs](https://www.zenrows.com/compare/oxylabs.md) - [Zenrows vs in-house Playwright](https://www.zenrows.com/compare/playwright.md) - [Build vs buy](https://www.zenrows.com/compare/build-vs-buy.md) - [Apify alternative (full analysis)](https://www.zenrows.com/alternatives/apify.md)