Skyvern vs Apify
A detailed comparison to help you choose between Skyvern and Apify.
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Verdict: Apify wins
Apify scores 4.3/5, edging out Skyvern at 4.0/5. Developers and data teams who need web data as a recurring pipeline — prebuilt scrapers to start, custom Actors and proxy infrastructure as they scale.
Skyvern AI browser agent for workflow automation | Apify Web scraping and automation platform | |
|---|---|---|
| Rating | 4.0 (1 review) | 4.3 (1 review) |
| Pricing Model | freemium | freemium |
| Starting Price | Free tier available | Free tier available |
| Best For | Developers and ops teams automating login-gated, dynamic, CAPTCHA-protected browser workflows that keep breaking traditional scripts. | Developers and data teams who need web data as a recurring pipeline — prebuilt scrapers to start, custom Actors and proxy infrastructure as they scale. |
| Free Tier | ||
| API Access | ||
| Team Features | ||
| Open Source | ||
| Tags | open sourcefree tierapi accessbyok | free tierapi accessopen source |
| Visit Skyvern → | Visit Apify → |
Skyvern
Pros
- + Vision-driven navigation survives UI changes that break selector-based scripts — layout drift in my test did not stop a run
- + Per-step run traces explain what the agent did and why, which turns failures into diagnoses instead of guesswork
- + Native CAPTCHA and 2FA/TOTP handling removes the two flows that most automation tools refuse to touch
- + Open-source AGPL core with a documented Docker self-host path for teams that cannot send credentials to a cloud vendor
- + Credit sizing is transparent: the pricing page publishes estimated action counts per tier (~170 / ~1,200 / ~6,200)
Cons
- - Per-action cost is inherently higher than scripted automation — each step carries LLM round trips, and self-hosters pay their own LLM API bills
- - Free tier (5,000 credits, 1 concurrent run) is an evaluation tier; team workspaces and 2FA support start at $149/month
- - Reliability on the hardest bot-protected and rate-limited sites is not something I would stake an SLA on despite native CAPTCHA solving
- - Seed-stage company with a small team; funding figures conflict across databases ($728K vs $2.7M) and long-term support is an open question
- - Not the right tool for high-volume extraction over stable pages, where a plain scraper is faster and far cheaper
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
Frequently Asked Questions
Which is better, Skyvern or Apify?▼
Apify scores higher at 4.3/5 vs 4.0/5 for Skyvern, making it the better-rated option in our comparison.
What is the difference between Skyvern and Apify?▼
Skyvern: Open-source AI browser automation agent that can navigate complex websites, extract data, and complete workflows using LLMs and computer vision. Apify: Apify is a marketplace and platform of ready-made web scrapers and automation actors, with tooling to build and host your own.
Is Skyvern or Apify more affordable?▼
Skyvern starts at €0/mo, Apify starts at €0/mo. Check the comparison table above for current pricing.
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