Does Apify protect me if the site I scrape sues me?

No, it's the opposite. The general terms provide that you indemnify Apify if your extraction targets an unauthorized source, and that you alone are responsible for the legality, quality and use of the extracted data. The tool doesn't cover you: it shifts the risk onto you by contract.

Does the target site's robots.txt still apply if I use Apify?

Yes, whatever the technical tool allows. Apify's terms require that you only use the service for data "you are authorized to access" and in compliance with applicable laws — which includes the rules published by the site you target, robots.txt included. The technical ability to bypass a restriction creates no right to do so.

If I collect professional email addresses in bulk, is that personal data?

Yes, almost always. An address tied to a named or identifiable individual remains personal data under GDPR, even professional and even public. Collecting it in bulk via Apify changes nothing about that classification; it's up to you to base that collection on a legal ground and use it accordingly.

Do you need to know how to code to use Apify?

Not to run an existing Actor from the marketplace: that's done with a click, through a settings form. Writing or modifying a custom Actor, on the other hand, requires JavaScript or Python, and reading the API documentation to plug the result in elsewhere.

What's the difference with Firecrawl or Bright Data?

Firecrawl aims first to feed a language model with clean content, not to cover a catalog of ready-made scrapers. Bright Data leans more on raw proxy infrastructure. Apify stands out for its marketplace: thousands of Actors already written for specific sites, that you rent rather than code.

Apify: our review

Apify is a marketplace of web scrapers (the "Actors") that you rent by the run rather than code yourself. The question that matters isn't technical: it's whose data you're extracting, and under whose responsibility.

Cloud or self-hostedFree version, then paid·from $29/month

Go to Apify's website

What we take away from it

What counts in its favor

Czech company, data hosted in the EU and the United States, with a clear contractual distinction between Apify as processor (your extracted data) and Apify as controller (your own account).
No model training on data extracted on a client's behalf, except under a separate agreement — a written commitment in the privacy policy.
Pay-as-you-go billing (compute units, proxy): no fixed subscription if the volume processed varies from month to month.

What counts against it

The terms put the responsibility for extraction on you: "you will indemnify any affected third party" if the data comes from an unauthorized source. Apify protects itself, not you.
The marketplace hosts scrapers published by third parties, for which Apify explicitly disclaims any content guarantee.
Prepaid credits don't roll over from one month to the next: a quiet month doesn't offset a busy one.

A good choice for industrializing extractions that are already legitimate — your own public competitors, your own site migration. Skip it if you're counting on the tool to settle the legality of the target: that's not its role, and its terms say so plainly.

The facts

First paid tier: $29/month — Starter
Data hosting: Cloud or self-hosted · source
Categories: Data collection
Data verified on: 30 July 2026

What happens to your data

Is your data used to train their models?: No
Subprocessors: Not named in the public documentation reviewed; the privacy policy points to a data processing addendum (DPA) for clients who request one.
Retention: "No Personal Data longer than necessary for the purposes for which it was collected," with no figure given in the text reviewed.

Apify in detail

Apify doesn't write a scraper for you: it's a marketplace where developers publish "Actors," ready-made data-collection programs for a given site or task (Amazon product listings, LinkedIn profiles, Google Maps results). You rent the run by the hour of compute rather than writing the code yourself.

What it actually does

An Actor runs in Apify's cloud: you pick a target in the store, set a few parameters (keywords, pages to crawl, output format), and the result arrives as JSON, CSV, or in a database queryable via API. The meter that counts is the compute unit: one gigabyte of memory used for one hour. A light Actor that runs for five minutes costs little; a heavy Actor that runs all night can exceed the monthly plan before the month is over.

Why the question is legal first, not technical

Apify can technically extract any public page. The question the technical sheet never asks is the one that matters: do you have the right to extract that particular page? Apify's general terms are explicit on this point: you must use the service for data "you are authorized to access," and if the extraction targets an unauthorized source, you are the one who indemnifies affected third parties — not Apify. The target site's robots.txt and terms of use continue to apply, whatever the tool's technical ability to bypass them.

The case of personal data deserves to be said plainly: a list of professional email addresses, even public ones, remains personal data under GDPR as soon as it can be linked to a person. Collecting it in bulk doesn't change that classification; it only changes the scale of the processing, and therefore the attention it deserves. None of this bans a legitimate use — monitoring your own competitors' published prices, migrating your own site, tracking mentions of your brand. It's the tipping point to know before launching an Actor, not after.

On this front, Apify stands out with documentation more precise than the sector's average: the company, Czech, explicitly separates its role as processor for the data you extract from its role as controller for your own account, and commits not to train a model on data extracted on a client's behalf without a separate agreement.

Where it falls short

The marketplace also works as a shared legal gray zone: Apify publishes other vendors' Actors and disclaims any guarantee on their content or behavior. A poorly written Actor can violate terms you never checked yourself. Add to that prepaid credits that don't roll over from one month to the next, and billing that punishes a badly configured Actor looping all night.

Our recommendation

Apify suits a team that has already settled the legal question of its collection and wants to industrialize it properly. It doesn't suit anyone looking to the tool for an answer to a question they haven't asked: upfront advisory and audit work remains the right step before launching an Actor on a sensitive target, especially in a legal sector where professional confidentiality adds to GDPR.

Who it's for, and who it isn't

Suited for

A technical team that wants to industrialize an extraction already validated legally (price monitoring on its own market, content migration)
An SMB that needs a variable volume from one source to another, without paying a fixed subscription for a quiet month

Not a fit

Anyone looking for an implicit legal green light: Apify documents plainly that the legality of the source remains your responsibility
A team with no one able to read API documentation or adjust an existing Actor

Frequently asked questions

Does Apify protect me if the site I scrape sues me?: No, it's the opposite. The general terms provide that you indemnify Apify if your extraction targets an unauthorized source, and that you alone are responsible for the legality, quality and use of the extracted data. The tool doesn't cover you: it shifts the risk onto you by contract.
Does the target site's robots.txt still apply if I use Apify?: Yes, whatever the technical tool allows. Apify's terms require that you only use the service for data "you are authorized to access" and in compliance with applicable laws — which includes the rules published by the site you target, robots.txt included. The technical ability to bypass a restriction creates no right to do so.
If I collect professional email addresses in bulk, is that personal data?: Yes, almost always. An address tied to a named or identifiable individual remains personal data under GDPR, even professional and even public. Collecting it in bulk via Apify changes nothing about that classification; it's up to you to base that collection on a legal ground and use it accordingly.
Do you need to know how to code to use Apify?: Not to run an existing Actor from the marketplace: that's done with a click, through a settings form. Writing or modifying a custom Actor, on the other hand, requires JavaScript or Python, and reading the API documentation to plug the result in elsewhere.
What's the difference with Firecrawl or Bright Data?: Firecrawl aims first to feed a language model with clean content, not to cover a catalog of ready-made scrapers. Bright Data leans more on raw proxy infrastructure. Apify stands out for its marketplace: thousands of Actors already written for specific sites, that you rent rather than code.

Alternatives to Apify

Data collection · RAG and knowledge bases

Firecrawl

Turns an entire site into clean data, to feed a model.

Data in the United StatesFree version, then paid·from $16/month

Official website Our analysis

Data collection

Bright Data

Proxy and large-scale scraping API infrastructure for collecting web data.

Paid

Official website