Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Distill.io VS Apify

Compare Distill.io VS Apify 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.

Distill.io logo Distill.io

Distill.io is one of the advanced page monitoring tools used by professionals to monitor dynamic pages, feeds, and iframes.

Apify logo Apify

Apify is a web scraping and automation platform that can turn any website into an API.
  • Distill.io Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-07-27
  • 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.

Distill.io features and specs

  • Real-time Monitoring
    Distill.io provides real-time monitoring capabilities, allowing users to track changes on websites as they happen. This is particularly useful for keeping up-to-date with time-sensitive information.
  • Customization
    Users can customize the tracking frequency and specific elements to monitor on a webpage, giving them control over what information they want to track and how often they receive updates.
  • User-friendly Interface
    The platform offers a straightforward and intuitive interface, making it accessible for users without extensive technical skills to set up website monitoring.
  • Multi-platform Support
    Distill.io supports various platforms including web browsers, mobile devices, and desktops, providing users with flexibility in accessing their monitoring data.

Possible disadvantages of Distill.io

  • Limited Free Plan
    The free version of Distill.io has significant restrictions on the number of monitors and frequency of checks, which may not be sufficient for users with extensive monitoring needs.
  • Potentially High Costs
    For users requiring more frequent monitoring or additional features, the cost can escalate, making it less affordable for personal or small business use.
  • Complex Setup for Advanced Users
    While the basic setup is user-friendly, configuring more advanced monitoring options can be complex and challenging for those who are not technically inclined.
  • Browser Dependency
    Distill.io is heavily reliant on web browsers, which could lead to issues if there are changes or updates to browser security settings or compatibility.

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 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.

Distill.io videos

How To Monitor Website Changes? - Distill.io Chrome Extension

More videos:

  • Review - Data Alerts with Distill.io

Apify videos

Apify product news - 2019/01/30

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Distill.io and Apify)
Monitoring Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Web Scraping
0 0%
100% 100
Website Monitoring
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 Distill.io and Apify

Distill.io Reviews

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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

Based on our record, Distill.io should be more popular than Apify. It has been mentiond 82 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.

Distill.io mentions (82)

  • Tips for people waiting for the Refurbished Steam Deck restock
    First of all, you probably don't want to manually refresh the Steam page to check if the SD is back in stock, so I recommend installing a website monitoring extension. There are a few out there but I can vouch for distill.io because it has a free tier with unlimited local checks. Set the intervals as low as you want, but keep in mind that the last restock lasted about 45 minutes - 1 hour. I personally set mine to... Source: over 1 year ago
  • Website change trackers
    Recently found out about website change trackers and had to share, like distill.io and fetchnotifs (not affiliated btw). I use them like everyday for amazon items and general stuff. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • Canyon Endurace CF out of stock
    You can also try notify-me.rs . It's super simple tracker, and has more checks than distill.io , we have bunch of people from this subreddit using it already! Source: almost 2 years ago
  • NEW SERIES OF JEFF DRAWINGS ON SALE
    Were these even advertised anywhere online? Insane how fast the 6x8s went. Glad I've had a distill.io alert set there for like 2 years now haha. Source: almost 2 years ago
  • What is the best free tool or code to monitor visual changes to a website in real time? (e.g. Distill.io)
    Distill.io offers every 5 seconds but it seems I need an upgraded account to be able to select this interval using the Device "Cloud-Distill's Severs (this device)". So it seems I'd need to always be on my computer in order for it to run. So I selected "Any Local Device (beta)" for device. Description for "Device" = Select device that this monitor runs on. Other devices will appear in the list once all devices... Source: almost 2 years ago
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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 / 30 days 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 / 2 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 / 9 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 / 9 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
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What are some alternatives?

When comparing Distill.io and Apify, you can also consider the following products

Visualping - Visualping is the easiest to use website checker, webpage change monitoring, website change detector and website change alert software of the web. Read more about Visualping.

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.

Monity.ai - Monitor website changes in real time with Monity.ai – Stay informed with AI-powered alerts and never miss anything happening on the internet.

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

Browse AI - Automate any workflow on any website with no code. Used for monitoring, testing, automation, and data aggregation.Sign up now for free and receive 2x jobs per month – forever!

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