Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Apify VS CodeceptJS

Compare Apify VS CodeceptJS and see what are their differences

Note: These products don't have any matching categories. If you think this is a mistake, please edit the details of one of the products and suggest appropriate categories.

Apify logo Apify

Apify is a web scraping and automation platform that can turn any website into an API.

CodeceptJS logo CodeceptJS

SuperCharged End 2 End Testing with WebDriver & Puppeteer
  • 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.

  • CodeceptJS Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-08-27

Apify

Website
apify.com
$ Details
-
Startup details
Country
Czech Republic
City
Prague
Employees
10 - 19

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.

CodeceptJS features and specs

  • Unified Testing Framework
    CodeceptJS uses the BDD-style syntax to write tests, which makes it easier to read and write. It supports multiple backend drivers such as WebDriver, Protractor, Puppeteer, and Playwright, allowing flexibility in test automation.
  • Interactive Debugging
    It offers an interactive debugging mode, where you can pause tests and interact with the application in a browser, making it easier to diagnose and fix issues.
  • Scenario-based Testing
    Provides a scenario-based testing approach that is easy to understand and helps create more structured and organized test cases.
  • Rich Plugin Ecosystem
    CodeceptJS has a variety of plugins available that can extend its capabilities, such as allure reports, UI-based test execution, and advanced interface configurations.
  • Automatic Waiting
    With its built-in automatic waiting system, testers don't need to write explicit waits or sleeps, reducing flakiness in test scripts.

Possible disadvantages of CodeceptJS

  • Learning Curve
    While CodeceptJS simplifies many aspects of testing, it requires initial learning and adaptation for those not familiar with its scenario-driven testing approach or JavaScript.
  • Configuration Complexity
    Setting up CodeceptJS with the different supported drivers can be complex, especially for beginners or those who are not familiar with JavaScript-based test automation.
  • Community and Support
    Although gaining popularity, the community size is relatively smaller compared to some other testing frameworks, which may lead to limited resources or solutions when facing complex issues.
  • Performance Overhead
    The abstraction layers that CodeceptJS provides, while useful, can sometimes lead to performance overhead compared to writing raw scripts with lower-level libraries directly.

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.

Apify videos

Apify product news - 2019/01/30

CodeceptJS videos

Testing with NightwatchJS, Introduction to CodeceptJS, CodeceptJS + Playright and Cypress journey

More videos:

  • Review - Video #10 For a better tests Management with CodeceptJS & Docker
  • Review - CodeceptUI - bringing Cypress like experience to CodeceptJS

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Apify and CodeceptJS)
Web Scraping
100 100%
0% 0
Automated Testing
0 0%
100% 100
Data Extraction
100 100%
0% 0
Browser Testing
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 Apify and CodeceptJS

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...

CodeceptJS Reviews

We have no reviews of CodeceptJS yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Apify should be more popular than CodeceptJS. It has been mentiond 26 times since March 2021. 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.

Apify mentions (26)

  • How to scrape TikTok using Python
    For deployment, we'll use the Apify platform. It's a simple and effective environment for cloud deployment, allowing efficient interaction with your crawler. Call it via API, schedule tasks, integrate with various services, and much more. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • How to scrape Bluesky with Python
    We already have a fully functional implementation for local execution. Let us explore how to adapt it for running on the Apify Platform and transform in Apify Actor. - Source: dev.to / 3 months ago
  • Web scraping with GPT-4o: powerful but expensive
    We've had the best success by first converting the HTML to a simpler format (i.e. markdown) before passing it to the LLM. There are a few ways to do this that we've tried, namely Extractus[0] and dom-to-semantic-markdown[1]. Internally we use Apify[2] and Firecrawl[3] for Magic Loops[4] that run in the cloud, both of which have options for simplifying pages built-in, but for our Chrome Extension we use... - Source: Hacker News / 10 months ago
  • Current problems and mistakes of web scraping in Python and tricks to solve them!
    Developed by Apify, it is a Python adaptation of their famous JS framework crawlee, first released on Jul 9, 2019. - Source: dev.to / 10 months ago
  • Show HN: Crawlee for Python – a web scraping and browser automation library
    Hey all, This is Jan, the founder of [Apify](https://apify.com/)—a full-stack web scraping platform. After the success of [Crawlee for JavaScript](https://github.com/apify/crawlee/) today! The main features are: - A unified programming interface for both HTTP (HTTPX with BeautifulSoup) & headless browser crawling (Playwright). - Source: Hacker News / 11 months ago
View more

CodeceptJS mentions (10)

  • Automation Framework Design
    But honestly, it may be preferable for you to use a single framework that does support both technologies (Web and Mobile) out of the box like webdriver.io or codecept. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Comparing Full Page Screenshots, Cross-Device
    There are different tools for visual screenshot testing, like BackstopJS, and Cypress.io also has a screenshot() function. In this series, I focus on writing tests with CodeceptJS. - Source: dev.to / about 2 years ago
  • How to Accelerate Selenide Tests with Playwright
    CodeceptJS – A wrapper for different tools in one interface. Language: JavaScript/TypeScript. Frameworks that are wrapped: Playwright, Webdriver.io, Puppeteer, Protractor, etc. The service also comes with a large community and is easy to install and use for e2e testing. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Cypress vs WebDriverIO vs Selenium, and more — The ULTIMATE comparison among testing frameworks
    I'm saddened codeceptJS wasn't even mentioned. It's easily better than most of the ones listed except Cypress. Source: over 2 years ago
  • Testing React Apps in 2022 with Cypress: An In-Depth Guide for Beginners
    Back when I was doing FE, I found https://codecept.io, which is the same concept as Cypress but with a Playwright driver. Have not used but thought it's worth a mention. - Source: Hacker News / over 2 years ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

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

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.

Cypress.io - Slow, difficult and unreliable testing for anything that runs in a browser. Install Cypress in seconds and take the pain out of front-end testing.

Scrapy - Scrapy | A Fast and Powerful Scraping and Web Crawling Framework

Selenium - Selenium automates browsers. That's it! What you do with that power is entirely up to you. Primarily, it is for automating web applications for testing purposes, but is certainly not limited to just that.

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

Playwright - Playwright is automation software for Chromium, Firefox, Webkit using the Node.js library having a single API in place.