Apify vs Outscraper (and is ScrapeField better?)
Apify is a platform of more than 80,000 scrapers, called Actors, most written by third parties. Outscraper is a Google Maps specialist: places, reviews and photos, plus other Google products and review sites. Here is how they differ, when to choose which, and where ScrapeField fits.
| Apify | Outscraper | ScrapeField | |
|---|---|---|---|
| What it is | A platform of more than 80,000 scrapers, called Actors, most written by third parties | A Google Maps specialist: places, reviews and photos, plus other Google products and review sites | An API for five platforms, Google Maps, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok and X |
| What it covers | Almost any site, an Actor for each | Google Maps, Google Search, Shopping and Play, about 25 review sites, and contacts from businesses’ own websites | Google Maps, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok and X: 45 endpoints |
| How you use it | Start an Actor’s run, wait for it, and read its dataset, from the console or the API | An API with tasks you poll or a webhook, a no-code app, and file exports | From code, an agent or the MCP server: one GET returns the answer |
| How it bills | Compute units or a price per result, set by each Actor; from $19 a month after the free plan | Per record, in tiers that reset every 30 days: $3.00 per 1,000 places, $1.00 past 100,000 | Credits per call, in packs from $39; they never expire |
| Free to try | $5 of usage a month on the free plan | The first 500 places, reviews and photos every 30 days; a card before any use | 2,000 credits once, and a demo with no account at all |
| Needs your login | Each Actor’s author decides: the big LinkedIn Actors need none, a few ask for your cookies | No | Never: no login, cookie or session of yours, for any reason |
| What you get back | Each Actor’s own shape: two Google Maps Actors, two schemas | Outscraper’s own field names; Excel, CSV or Parquet | One documented schema per platform, named after its official API |
Checked 3 October 2026 against each vendor’s own pricing page. Rechecked quarterly — tell us if something here is out of date and we will fix it.
Which to choose
Choose Apify if you need a site nobody else covers, an Actor someone has already written, or schedules and storage on one platform.
Choose Outscraper if you want emails and contacts from businesses’ own websites, other Google products or review sites beside Maps, or a spreadsheet without code.
Is ScrapeField better?
Only for one job. Choose ScrapeField if you need Google Maps, LinkedIn, Instagram, TikTok or X data in your code, at a price per call you can multiply, without lending us an account. For anything else, choose Apify or Outscraper as above.
Each has a full comparison with us, including where it wins: ScrapeField vs Apify and ScrapeField vs Outscraper.
Try it before you decide
Every endpoint has a playground that runs against the live API with no key and no account. If the response shape does not fit your code, you will know in about a minute.