Apify vs Stagehand
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Apify and Stagehand.
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Verdict: Apify wins
Apify scores 4.3/5, edging out Stagehand at 4.2/5. Developers and data teams who need web data as a recurring pipeline — prebuilt scrapers to start, custom Actors and proxy infrastructure as they scale.
Apify Web scraping and automation platform | Stagehand Browser automation for complex web tasks using AI | |
|---|---|---|
| Rating | 4.3 (1 review) | 4.2 (1 review) |
| Pricing Model | freemium | free |
| Starting Price | Free tier available | Free |
| Best For | Developers and data teams who need web data as a recurring pipeline — prebuilt scrapers to start, custom Actors and proxy infrastructure as they scale. | Engineers building production browser agents who want natural-language actions with a Playwright escape hatch and can tolerate per-action LLM costs. |
| Free Tier | ||
| API Access | ||
| Team Features | ||
| Open Source | ||
| Tags | free tierapi accessopen source | free tieropen sourceapi access |
| Visit Apify → | Visit Stagehand → |
Apify
Pros
- + Genuine free sandbox: $5 monthly credit covers real test runs of store Actors, not just a feature tour
- + Store breadth — flagship scrapers (Google Maps, Instagram, SERP) show 4.6–4.7 ratings across hundreds of reviews in their own store stats
- + Billing is itemized per compute unit, proxy GB and storage operation, so I could attribute a run's cost down to cents
- + First-class developer tooling: Crawlee (open source), Python and JS SDKs, CLI deploys, scheduling, webhooks, REST API
- + Proxy network (datacenter, residential, Google SERP) is integrated rather than a third-party add-on, with country-level rates published
Cons
- - Real cost is a stack of meters (Actor per-event price + compute units + proxy GB + storage) and is hard to forecast without test runs
- - Store catalog is noisy with heavy duplication — one reviewer counted 12,000+ job scrapers alone; long-tail quality is unvetted
- - Anything past running a prebuilt Actor requires coding skills and proxy knowledge
- - SSO is Enterprise-only; personal training is $150/hour; support is community-only below the $19 tier
- - Vendor's headline customer and catalog counts are self-reported and undefined — I could not verify them independently
Stagehand
Pros
- + MIT-licensed SDK runs locally against any Chromium browser; in my test the act() call re-resolved after I rewrote a login button's classes and wrappers, while my hand-written Playwright selector broke
- + extract() returns schema-validated typed data (pydantic/Zod/struct) — pulling an invoice table into typed fields removed the JSON cleanup step entirely
- + observe() hands back real selectors, so I filled login credentials with ordinary Playwright calls and the secrets never reached the model
- + Full TypeScript, Python and Go support from one monorepo, with deep locators that reached nested iframes and a closed shadow DOM in my runs
- + Token cost per action is a fraction of screenshot-driven agents I have tested, because page context is a trimmed accessibility tree rather than images
Cons
- - Every act/extract/observe call is an LLM round trip — my ten-step workflow ran noticeably slower than the equivalent pure Playwright script
- - Code-only: no recorder or visual builder, so non-programmers cannot build or maintain automations
- - Anti-bot features (stealth, residential proxies, verified sessions) live in paid Browserbase plans, not the free SDK
- - Pages with canvas-rendered or heavily obfuscated UIs leave the accessibility tree thin and the AI primitives degrade
- - v4 is still moving fast; I pin versions because major upgrades have meant migration work
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is better, Apify or Stagehand?▼
Apify scores higher at 4.3/5 vs 4.2/5 for Stagehand, making it the better-rated option in our comparison.
What is the difference between Apify and Stagehand?▼
Apify: Apify is a marketplace and platform of ready-made web scrapers and automation actors, with tooling to build and host your own. Stagehand: Stagehand is an SDK for building browser agents, with a Playwright-style API and selectors that repair themselves when a page changes, in TypeScript, Python and Go.
Is Apify or Stagehand more affordable?▼
Apify starts at €0/mo, Stagehand starts at €0/mo. Check the comparison table above for current pricing.
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