Apify alternative that cuts the token bill: CrawlGenie
Apify is an actor marketplace: thousands of community scrapers billed per run plus platform usage. CrawlGenie ships 61 agents it maintains itself (jobs, reviews, places, prices, filings, papers, posts, pricing pages, brand assets, SEO + AIO reports, any repeated list), includes them in every plan, and adds the token-saving layer around them.
What is the difference between Apify and CrawlGenie?
Apify's strength is breadth: an actor for almost anything, maintained by its author, priced by its author. CrawlGenie's strength is that every extractor is first-party, honest about proxies, exposes the same inputs and outputs, becomes a watch with one click, and is callable by an agent as a single tool. Apify datasets live on Apify; CrawlGenie rows live in your SQLite file and your knowledge base.
| Capability | Apify | CrawlGenie |
|---|---|---|
| Model | Marketplace of community actors, per-run pricing + platform usage | 61 first-party agents included in every plan |
| Quality signal | Author ratings and usage | Same contract for every extractor; "needs proxy" labels; tested from a residential IP |
| Scheduling and change tracking | Schedules; diffs via your own code | Watches with state, "what changed", alerts, webhooks, datasets over time |
| Custom sites | Write an actor (code) | css_extract (selectors), auto_list (no selectors), routines (record clicks) |
| Agent integration | MCP server for actors | MCP tools (vessel_extract, web_answer, knowledge_*), function schemas, SDKs |
| Where data lives | Apify datasets and key-value stores | Your SQLite and files; knowledge collections for questions |
| Browser sessions | Actors can run browsers | Governed sessions with approvals, snapshots, rewind, live takeover |
What do the extractors cover?
Fourteen verticals: local and leads, e-commerce, jobs, reviews, social, news, SEO, finance, research, government, legal, travel, events and generic. Each returns rows with stable columns, reports how many pages it read, says when a site blocked it, and can run on a cron with webhooks. The full list with inputs is generated from the running server at /docs/extractors.
When should you stay with Apify?
Stay with Apify if you need a long-tail site that only a community actor covers, want a marketplace to sell your own scrapers, or need its scale and proxy pool without running infrastructure.
How do I migrate?
List the actors you pay for and look for the equivalent in the extractor library (GET /v1/extractors). css_extract and auto_list cover most custom lists without code; routines cover click-through workflows; POST /v1/watches replaces scheduled actor runs with change tracking and webhooks. Datasets export as CSV and JSON, and can be sent to a knowledge collection for questions later.
For developers: the exact call
# Apify: run an actor and fetch its dataset POST https://api.apify.com/v2/acts//run-sync-get-dataset-items # CrawlGenie: same shape, no marketplace POST https://your-vessel/v1/extractors/greenhouse_jobs/run {"input": {"board": "stripe"}} → rows[] · columns[] · summary "Baseline: 48 jobs" # ?format=csv for a file
Related: web scraping for LLMs · MCP web browser · measured comparison · extractor library · free SEO + AIO report.
What would this save you?
Move the sliders. The saving is computed from the measured ratios above and the model price you pick.
Assumes 10% of the page is kept per read (measured range 5–15%). Receipts in the product show the real number for your traffic.
Questions people ask
Does CrawlGenie have as many scrapers as Apify?
No. Apify has thousands of community actors; CrawlGenie has 61 first-party extractors plus three generic ones (CSS, auto-list, routines) that cover most custom needs without code. For a rare long-tail site, Apify may still be the faster route.
Can I schedule extractors like Apify schedules?
Yes: any extractor becomes a watch with a cron expression, change tracking, alerts and webhooks, at zero model tokens. Hosts that sleep can trigger due runs with POST /v1/tick.
Do the extractors need proxies?
Most do not. Yelp, eBay, G2 and LinkedIn Jobs block datacenter IPs and are labelled "needs proxy"; bring your own residential proxy for those.
Spend tokens on answers, not on pages.
Create a workspace in a minute. Connect ChatGPT, Claude, Cursor or your own agents. Every answer comes with a token receipt.