Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Apify VS ML5.js

Compare Apify VS ML5.js and see what are their differences

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Apify logo Apify

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

ML5.js logo ML5.js

Friendly machine learning for the web
  • 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.

  • ML5.js Landing page
    Landing page //
    2021-10-12

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.

ML5.js features and specs

  • Ease of Use
    ml5.js is designed with simplicity in mind, making machine learning accessible to artists, creative coders, and students, even those without a robust background in AI or machine learning.
  • Browser-based
    Operates directly in the browser, eliminating the need for any additional setup or dependencies, which makes it highly compatible with web projects.
  • Pre-trained Models
    Includes a variety of pre-trained models for quick implementation of complex machine learning tasks like image classification, pose detection, and text generation.
  • Community and Documentation
    Strong community support and well-documented guides and examples help new users get started quickly and find solutions to common issues.
  • Integration with p5.js
    Integrates seamlessly with p5.js, a popular JavaScript library for creative coding, facilitating the development of interactive and visually engaging applications.

Possible disadvantages of ML5.js

  • Performance Limitations
    Since it runs in the browser, it may not be suitable for performance-intensive applications or those requiring real-time processing of large datasets.
  • Limited Customization
    While it offers pre-trained models, there is limited functionality for training new models from scratch compared to more comprehensive libraries like TensorFlow.js.
  • Dependency on Web Standards
    Depends on the performance and capabilities of the client's browser, which can vary significantly between different users and devices.
  • Size of Models
    Some pre-trained models can be quite large, which may affect loading times and performance on slower network connections or less powerful devices.
  • Scope
    Focused on high-level tasks and applications, which might not be sufficient for advanced machine learning requirements or niche functionalities outside its provided models.

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 ML5.js

Overall verdict

  • ML5.js is considered a good tool for web developers who want to incorporate machine learning into their projects without needing extensive knowledge of the underlying algorithms. It's particularly noted for its simplicity and ease of use.

Why this product is good

  • ML5.js is a high-level JavaScript library built on top of TensorFlow.js. It is designed to make machine learning accessible to web developers with minimal expertise in machine learning or deep learning. The library provides easy-to-use functions for tasks such as image and video classification, pose detection, text generation, and more. Its simplicity and ease of integration make it ideal for rapid prototyping and educational purposes.

Recommended for

    ML5.js is recommended for educators, beginners, artists, and developers who want to quickly implement machine learning models in web applications. It is also suitable for creative coding projects and interactive applications where simplicity and ease of use are important.

Apify videos

Apify product news - 2019/01/30

ML5.js videos

ml5.js: Train Your Own Neural Network

More videos:

  • Review - ml5.js: Image Classification with MobileNet
  • Review - Image classification to gif with ML5.js | Vue.js Virtual Meetup

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Apify and ML5.js)
Web Scraping
100 100%
0% 0
AI
0 0%
100% 100
Data Extraction
100 100%
0% 0
Developer Tools
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 ML5.js

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...

ML5.js Reviews

We have no reviews of ML5.js yet.
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Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Apify should be more popular than ML5.js. 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 / 12 months ago
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ML5.js mentions (10)

  • How AI is Transforming Front-End Development in 2025!
    Ml5.js: Built on top of TensorFlow.js, it provides a user-friendly interface for implementing machine learning in web applications.​. - Source: dev.to / about 2 months ago
  • Riffr - Create Photo Montages in the Browser with some ML Magic✨
    Important APIs - ml5 for in-browser detection, face-api that uses tensorflow-node to accelerate on-server detection. VueUse for a bunch of useful component tools like the QR Code generator. Yahoo's Gifshot for creating gif files in-browser etc. - Source: dev.to / over 2 years ago
  • Brain.js: GPU Accelerated Neural Networks in JavaScript
    See also: https://ml5js.org/ "The library provides access to machine learning algorithms and models in the browser, building on top of TensorFlow.js with no other external dependencies.". - Source: Hacker News / almost 3 years ago
  • [Showoff Saturday] I made a captcha prototype that requires a banana
    I used ml5js.org , p5js.org and https://teachablemachine.withgoogle.com to train the Banana images. When you create a new image project on Teachable Machine, you can output the p5js and basically use it right out of the box - I customized js, css, and html from there. Source: over 3 years ago
  • My First 30 Days of 100 Days of Code.
    Going forward: I'll be 100% into JavaScript. You can use JavaScript in so many fields nowadays. Websites React, Mobile Apps React Native, Machine Learning TensorFlow & ML5, Desktop Applications Electron, and of course the backend Node as well. It's kind of a no-brainer. Of course, they all have specific languages that are better, but for now, JavaScript is a bit of a catch-all. - Source: dev.to / over 3 years ago
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Apify and ML5.js, 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.

Amazon Machine Learning - Machine learning made easy for developers of any skill level

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

Machine Learning Playground - Breathtaking visuals for learning ML techniques.

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

Apple Machine Learning Journal - A blog written by Apple engineers