Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Amazon Textract VS Apify

Compare Amazon Textract VS Apify and see what are their differences

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Amazon Textract logo Amazon Textract

Easily extract text and data from virtually any document using Amazon Textract. Textract goes beyond simple optical character recognition (OCR) to also identify the contents of fields in forms and information stored in tables.

Apify logo Apify

Apify is a web scraping and automation platform that can turn any website into an API.
  • Amazon Textract Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-04-13
  • Apify Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-30

Apify is a JavaScript & Node.js based data extraction tool for websites that crawls lists of URLs and automates workflows on the web. With Apify you can manage and automatically scale a pool of headless Chrome / Puppeteer instances, maintain queues of URLs to crawl, store crawling results locally or in the cloud, rotate proxies and much more.

Amazon Textract features and specs

  • Accurate Data Extraction
    Amazon Textract uses machine learning and OCR technologies to provide high accuracy in extracting text and structured data from various document formats.
  • Supports Multiple Formats
    Textract can handle different document types, including PDFs, scanned images, and more, making it versatile for various use cases.
  • Ease of Integration
    Amazon Textract offers APIs that are easy to integrate with other AWS services and external applications, enhancing its usability.
  • Security and Compliance
    Being part of AWS, Textract adheres to robust security and compliance standards, ensuring data protection and privacy.
  • Scalability
    Textract is highly scalable and can process large volumes of documents efficiently, catering to both small businesses and large enterprises.

Possible disadvantages of Amazon Textract

  • Cost
    Amazon Textract can become expensive as the volume of document processing increases, which may be a concern for small businesses with limited budgets.
  • Complexity of Setup
    Though integration is straightforward, initial setup and configuration can be complex, requiring familiarity with AWS services and APIs.
  • Limited Advanced Features
    Textract may lack some advanced features and customization options that are available in more specialized OCR alternatives.
  • Dependency on AWS Ecosystem
    Exclusive reliance on AWS services can be a drawback for organizations that utilize a multi-cloud or hybrid cloud strategy.
  • Quality of Original Documents
    Textract’s accuracy largely depends on the quality of the original documents. Poor quality scans or heavily damaged documents may yield less accurate results.

Apify features and specs

  • Ease of Use
    Apify provides a user-friendly interface that makes it easy for users of all technical levels to create and manage web scraping tasks.
  • Scalability
    Apify is built to handle tasks of various sizes, from small-scale projects to enterprise-level operations, making it a scalable solution.
  • Integration and API Support
    It offers extensive API support, allowing for seamless integration with other tools and systems to enhance automated workflows.
  • Customizability
    Users can customize their scraping bots (actors) with different settings and scripts to fit specific needs and requirements.
  • Cloud-based
    Being a cloud-based platform, Apify allows users to run their scraping tasks without needing local resources, which is convenient and efficient.
  • Comprehensive Documentation
    Apify provides thorough documentation and tutorials, which help users get started quickly and solve issues efficiently.
  • Community and Support
    Apify has an active community and solid customer support to assist users with their needs and enhance their overall experience.

Possible disadvantages of Apify

  • Learning Curve
    While the interface is user-friendly, there may still be a learning curve for those new to web scraping and automation.
  • Cost
    Apify can be expensive compared to other web scraping tools, particularly for extensive use cases that require high volumes of data.
  • Dependency on External Factors
    Web scraping often depends on the stability of the target websites. Changes in website structures can break scripts, requiring ongoing maintenance.
  • Performance Limitations
    The performance of cloud-based scraping tasks can be affected by network latency and other external factors beyond user control.
  • Potential Legal Issues
    Web scraping can raise legal concerns, particularly when scraping data from websites that restrict such activities in their terms of service.
  • Resource Intensity
    Complex scraping tasks can be resource-intensive, potentially requiring higher-tier subscriptions and more computing resources, driving up costs.

Analysis of Amazon Textract

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Amazon Textract is generally considered a good service for its intended purposes.

Why this product is good

  • Amazon Textract is effective because it uses advanced machine learning techniques to automatically extract text, handwriting, and data from scanned documents. It is highly accurate, scalable, and integrates well with other AWS services, which makes it convenient for businesses looking to automate document processing.

Recommended for

  • Organizations looking to automate data extraction from large volumes of documents.
  • Companies needing to process forms and tables quickly and accurately.
  • Developers looking for a cloud-based OCR service that integrates with other AWS solutions.
  • Industries such as finance, healthcare, and legal, where document digitization is essential.

Analysis of Apify

Overall verdict

  • Yes, Apify is considered a good choice for web scraping and automation needs due to its comprehensive features, user-friendly interface, and strong community support. It is especially beneficial for those who require efficient, large-scale data extraction and workflow automation.

Why this product is good

  • Apify is an established platform known for its robust web scraping and automation capabilities. It provides a powerful API, pre-built actors for common tasks, and allows you to create custom web scrapers with ease. The platform is scalable, supports a variety of programming languages, and offers features like scheduling, proxies, and data storage solutions. This versatility makes it a valuable tool for businesses and developers needing efficient data retrieval and workflow automation.

Recommended for

  • Developers looking for a versatile web scraping solution.
  • Businesses needing to automate data collection processes.
  • Researchers and analysts requiring extensive data from the web.
  • Marketers seeking competitive analysis through data scraping.
  • Tech enthusiasts interested in exploring web automation tools.

Amazon Textract videos

Amazon Textract: First Look

More videos:

  • Review - AWS re:Invent 2018 – Announcing Amazon Textract
  • Review - Introducing Amazon Textract: Now in Preview

Apify videos

Apify product news - 2019/01/30

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Amazon Textract and Apify)
OCR
100 100%
0% 0
Web Scraping
0 0%
100% 100
OCR API
100 100%
0% 0
Data Extraction
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare Amazon Textract and Apify

Amazon Textract Reviews

2019 Examples to Compare OCR Services: Amazon Textract/Rekognition vs Google Vision vs Microsoft Cognitive Services
Pricing: Amazon Rekognition, Amazon Textract, Google, Microsoft. We don't really care which one you use, but Microsoft did best by our sample data. Textract was a very close second if you only need its headline feature: extracting text from digital documents. If someone wants to email bill -at- amplenote.com with comparable data for other images/services, I can try to...

Apify Reviews

Top 15 Best TinyTask Alternatives in 2022
This is another tinytask alternative. For you to link various web services and APIs, Apify has provided many web integration options. You can add data processing and customised computation processes in addition to letting the data flow between them. With the data that is freely accessible on the web, you may provide crucial insights, and easy lead creation allows you to...

Social recommendations and mentions

Apify might be a bit more popular than Amazon Textract. We know about 48 links to it since March 2021 and only 38 links to Amazon Textract. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

Amazon Textract mentions (38)

  • Why AWS Certified GenAI Developer stands apart from other AWS certs
    Production-grade solutions leverage AWS AI/ML services to complement Amazon Bedrock. Amazon Comprehend provides natural language processing capabilities. Amazon Rekognition captures frames from videos for visual analysis. Amazon Bedrock Data Automation handles complex document processing, while Amazon Textract extracts text and data from documents. - Source: dev.to / 5 months ago
  • From PartyRock to Bedrock: AI-Powered Automation at Work
    We were a little concerned that working with documents and Bedrock was going to mean a bunch of effort by using Texttract. I was glad we were proven wrong. I was able to build a quick proof of concept using the Bedrock API in 10 - 15 minutes. - Source: dev.to / over 1 year ago
  • Mastering Text Extraction from Multi-Page PDFs Using OCR API: A Step-by-Step Guide
    Amazon Textract is an OCR service provided by Amazon Web Services (AWS), specifically designed to extract text and data from scanned documents and images. It not only recognizes text but also comprehends the document's structure, including tables and forms. This capability makes it especially valuable for applications requiring detailed data extraction, such as invoice processing and form digitization. - Source: dev.to / about 2 years ago
  • Ask HN: How to OCR a PDF and preserve whitespace?
    Did you try textract? https://aws.amazon.com/textract/ In my experience it works amazingly well with columns / tabulated content. - Source: Hacker News / about 2 years ago
  • Classifying and Extracting Data using Amazon Textract
    Amazon Textract has an Analyze Lending API for evaluating and categorizing the documents contained in mortgage loan application packages, as well as extracting the data they contain. The new API can assist in processing applications quicker and with minimal errors, therefore improving the end-customer experience and lowering operational costs. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
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Apify mentions (48)

  • I let an Apify Actor read my docs and write one GitHub issue. It found a 404 without cloning the repo.
    The first network smoke labeled https://apify.com/ inconclusive even though the page was healthy. The response carried a Content Security Policy header larger than aiohttp's default 8 KB field limit. The client failed while parsing headers, before I saw the 200. - Source: dev.to / 1 day ago
  • How to pull every open job from Greenhouse, Lever, Ashby and SmartRecruiters with public APIs (and monitor changes)
    Native @apify scheduling, dataset exports (CSV/JSON), webhooks, and it's callable by AI agents via Apify MCP. - Source: dev.to / 13 days ago
  • Google's News API has been gone since 2016, and people still search for it
    That runs News Scraper on Apify, which is the same forty lines plus the parts that are Tedious rather than hard: both feeds, the nested publisher element, the date Normalisation, and deduplication. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • WHOIS is gone, RDAP replaced it, and a 404 does not mean what you think
    That runs an Apify Actor I maintain, Domain Scraper, because the Tedious parts are the RDAP bootstrap, the vcard unpacking and the provider Fingerprinting rather than the HTTP call. If you would rather do it yourself, Https://rdap.org/domain/ is the whole API and it needs no key. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • How I Turned Canadian Open Government Data Into a Live Licence-Verification Site + API (Build Log, 2026)
    Data collection: Apify actors, one per source, that scrape the open-data endpoints and normalize them. Quebec RBQ ships a daily bulk CSV (inside a 10.8 MB zip, ~924k rows that dedupe to ~54k active licences). Ontario HCRA has no bulk file — it's an internal JSON API behind the public registry. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Amazon Textract and Apify, you can also consider the following products

DocParser - Extract data from PDF files & automate your workflow with our reliable document parsing software. Convert PDF files to Excel, JSON or update apps with webhooks.

import.io - Import. io helps its users find the internet data they need, organize and store it, and transform it into a format that provides them with the context they need.

Laserfiche - Laserfiche offers powerful document management software solutions that are easy to implement and easy to use.

Octoparse - Octoparse provides easy web scraping for anyone. Our advanced web crawler, allows users to turn web pages into structured spreadsheets within clicks.

TurboScanner HD - TurboScanner HD is an app for iOS that enables you to convert the iPad or iPhone into a useful scanner and also serves as small fax or air printer in your pocket.

Bright Data - World's largest proxy service with a residential proxy network of 72M IPs worldwide and proxy management interface for zero coding.