Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups
Register | Login

Apify VS Microlink

Compare Apify VS Microlink and see what are their differences

SuperOps
Modern PSA and RMM Software for MSP's and IT Teams featured
Contents:
  1. » Base Details
  2. » Videos
  3. » Reviews
  4. » Alternatives

Apify logo Apify

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

Microlink logo Microlink

Extract structured data from any website
  • 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.

  • Microlink Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-24

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.

Microlink features and specs

  • Ease of Implementation
    Microlink provides a straightforward API that is easy to integrate into various applications, enabling users to quickly extract web data.
  • Customizability
    The platform allows users to tailor the extraction process to their specific needs, including modifying data extraction settings and using custom rules.
  • Performance
    Microlink's infrastructure is built for handling large-scale requests efficiently, providing fast data retrieval from various sources.
  • Versatile Data Extraction
    It supports a wide array of data extraction use cases, such as scraping metadata, articles, and other web page elements from different websites.
  • Support & Documentation
    The service offers comprehensive documentation and reliable customer support to help users effectively utilize the platform.

Possible disadvantages of Microlink

  • Pricing Structure
    For smaller projects or individual use, the cost might be prohibitive, as Microlink generally targets larger-scale operations that require frequent data extraction.
  • Limited Free Tier
    The free tier of the service has limitations in terms of the number of requests, which may not be sufficient for users with substantial data needs.
  • Potential Overhead
    Depending on the project's complexity, there might be additional overhead in setting up API requests and handling data management post-extraction.
  • Reliance on Web Stability
    Like any web scraping service, its effectiveness can be impacted by changes in the target websites' structures or anti-scraping measures.

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.

Analysis of Microlink

Overall verdict

  • Microlink (microlink.io) is a good tool, especially for those looking to easily extract and process content from web pages.

Why this product is good

  • Microlink provides a powerful API for extracting content from websites, making it useful for developers and businesses looking to automate data retrieval.
  • It is easy to integrate into projects, with straightforward documentation and support.
  • Microlink supports various data processing features, such as screenshot generation, PDF conversion, and data transformation, adding versatility.
  • The tool is efficient in terms of speed and reliability, ensuring quick and accurate data retrieval.
  • Microlink offers customization options, which allow users to tailor the output according to their needs.

Recommended for

  • Developers who need to automate web content extraction.
  • Businesses or individuals needing to gather web data for analysis or reporting.
  • Digital marketers wanting to scrape or monitor competitor content.
  • Content creators automating content collection for aggregation or curation services.

Apify videos

+ Add

Apify product news - 2019/01/30

Microlink videos

+ Add

Update: Microlink Extensions on NATURAL HAIR | HONEST REVIEW!

More videos:

  • Review - FIRST TIME GETTING MICROLINKS (EXTENSIONS) + REVIEW: ARE THEY WORTH THE PRICE!?

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Apify and Microlink)

Apify

Microlink

Web Scraping
90 90%
Web Scraping
10% 10
Data Extraction
100 100%
Data Extraction
0% 0
Automation
0 0%
Automation
100% 100
Web Scraping API
100 100%
Web Scraping API
0% 0

User comments

Share your experience with using Apify and Microlink. For example, how are they different and which one is better?
Log in or Post with

Reviews

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

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...
Source: www.dashtech.org

Microlink Reviews

We have no reviews of Microlink yet.
Be the first one to post

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Apify should be more popular than Microlink. It has been mentiond 27 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 (27)

  • Launching Crawlee for Python v1.0 to simplify building web scrapers and crawlers
    Hey HN, This is Jan, the founder of Apify (https://apify.com/) — a full-stack web scraping platform. With the help of Python community and the early adopters feedback, after an year of building Crawlee for Python in beta mode, we are launching Crawlee for Python v1.0.0. The main features are: - Unified storage client system: less duplication, better extensibility, and a cleaner developer experience. It also opens... - Source: Hacker News / 4 days ago
  • 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 / 5 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 / 7 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 / about 1 year 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 / about 1 year ago
View more

Microlink mentions (5)

  • This weird IFRAME thing wasted my 2 days (and counting...)
    It's a very basic idea. Few days back, I got to know about this tool named 'microlink' which is a free Browser-as-API sdk. One of its feature was that you provide it a url and it will give you a screenshot of that particular page. - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • Newpipe/yt-dlp stops working
    How do the multiple startups that import YouTube video into their platform work - one's that need the video/audio files? There seems to be a lot of webapps supporting this but I always wondered if they have a goto API for doing this. I myself have used microlink at some points for automated video source extraction. https://microlink.io. - Source: Hacker News / about 1 year ago
  • Creating a serverless function to scrape web pages metadata
    Metascraper is baked by Microlink, which uses it internally in its browser automation product. - Source: dev.to / over 4 years ago
  • Show HN: Till – Unblock and scale your web scrapers, with minimal code changes
    These guys bypass cloudflare https://microlink.io it's open source but it's just more convenient to pay and forget about it. - Source: Hacker News / about 4 years ago
  • Free for dev - list of software (SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, etc.)
    Microlink.io – It turns any website into data such as metatags normalization, beauty link previews, scraping capabilities or screenshots as a service. 250 reqs/day every day free. - Source: dev.to / about 4 years ago

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Apify and Microlink, 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.

BrowserCat - Easy, fast, and reliable browser automation and headless browser APIs. The web is messy, but your code shouldn't be.

ParseHub - ParseHub is a free web scraping tool. With our advanced web scraper, extracting data is as easy as clicking the data you need.

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

Scraper API - Scale Data Collection with a Simple API.

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

Loading...