Competitor Breakdown 2026

Apify Alternative: Synchronous Data APIs Without Running Actors

Get search, social and e-commerce data back in a single HTTPS request instead of starting an actor run and polling its dataset.

Feature & Cost Matrix

Capability / Metric	SerpBase	Apify
Pricing model	Prepaid credit packs whose credits do not expire on a date, plus an optional monthly plan. Each request costs 1-3 credits.	Platform plans plus usage-based compute. Check the vendor's current pricing page; plans and limits change.
How you get data	One synchronous request returns the JSON result.	Start an actor run, then read its dataset when it finishes.
Maintenance	Managed endpoints; parsers are maintained by SerpBase.	Public actors are maintained by their authors; custom actors by you.
Coverage	39 endpoints in 6 categories: search engines, social media, e-commerce, maps, real estate and web scraping.	Large marketplace of community and official actors.
Free trial	100 free credits on sign-up, no credit card required.	Check the vendor's current pricing page; plans and limits change.

Apify plans, prices and limits change over time. Check Apify's pricing page for current terms, and SerpBase pricing for ours.

There is no run to start or dataset to poll; the response body is the result, which suits real-time agents and APIs.

Each endpoint has a fixed credit price (1-3 credits per request) instead of a cost that depends on run time and memory.

Endpoints are managed by SerpBase, so there is no actor code, container or scheduler to keep running.

Create a SerpBase account and generate an API key.

Replace actor runs with direct HTTPS requests to the matching endpoint.

Read results from the response body instead of polling a dataset.

Yes. The web crawl endpoint follows links within bounded limits; see its reference for depth and page limits.

New accounts get 100 free credits and access to the Playground to try the endpoints without a credit card.