Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

Google Cloud Datastore VS Apify

Compare Google Cloud Datastore 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.

Google Cloud Datastore logo Google Cloud Datastore

Cloud Datastore is a NoSQL database for your web and mobile applications.

Apify logo Apify

Apify is a web scraping and automation platform that can turn any website into an API.
  • Google Cloud Datastore Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-09-12
  • 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.

Google Cloud Datastore features and specs

  • Scalability
    Google Cloud Datastore can automatically scale to handle large amounts of data and high read/write loads, making it suitable for applications with growing data needs.
  • Fully Managed
    As a fully managed service, Google Cloud Datastore eliminates the need for managing servers, software patches, and replication, allowing developers to focus on building applications.
  • High Availability
    Datastore provides strong consistency for reads and writes and is designed to maintain availability even in case of entire data center outages.
  • Flexible Data Model
    The schemaless nature of Datastore allows for a flexible data model that can easily adapt to changes in application requirements.
  • Integration with Google Cloud Platform
    Datastore seamlessly integrates with other Google Cloud Platform services, which simplifies the process of building end-to-end solutions.

Possible disadvantages of Google Cloud Datastore

  • Complex Query Language
    Datastore Query Language (GQL) can be less intuitive compared to SQL, which may pose a learning curve for developers accustomed to traditional relational databases.
  • Eventual Consistency for Queries
    While Datastore offers strong consistency for entity lookups by key, queries must be specifically configured for strong consistency, otherwise they might return eventually consistent data.
  • Cost
    As usage scales, costs can increase, particularly for applications with high write loads or those requiring many transactional operations, which might be a consideration for budget-conscious projects.
  • Limited Relational Capabilities
    Datastore is a NoSQL database, which means it lacks some of the relational features like joins and complex transactions that developers might expect from a SQL database.
  • Index Management
    Managing indexes can become complex, as every query in Datastore requires a corresponding index, and poorly planned indexes can lead to increased storage costs and slower query performance.

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.

Google Cloud Datastore videos

No Google Cloud Datastore videos yet. You could help us improve this page by suggesting one.

Add video

Apify videos

Apify product news - 2019/01/30

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to Google Cloud Datastore and Apify)
Databases
100 100%
0% 0
Web Scraping
0 0%
100% 100
Relational Databases
100 100%
0% 0
Data Extraction
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

Share your experience with using Google Cloud Datastore and Apify. 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 Google Cloud Datastore and Apify

Google Cloud Datastore Reviews

We have no reviews of Google Cloud Datastore yet.
Be the first one to post

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, Apify should be more popular than Google Cloud Datastore. 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.

Google Cloud Datastore mentions (7)

  • Using Google Cloud Firestore with Django's ORM
    A long time ago, a fork of Django called “Django-nonrel” experimented with the idea of using Django’s ORM with a non-relational database; what was then called the App Engine Datastore, but is now known as Google Cloud Datastore (or technically, Google Cloud Firestore in Datastore Mode). Since then a more recent project called "django-gcloud-connectors" has been developed by Potato to allow seamless ORM integration... - Source: dev.to / about 1 year ago
  • How to deploy flask app with sqlite on google cloud ?
    In that case use Cloud Datastore (aka Firestore in Datastore Mode). It's a NoSQL db that was initially targeted just for GAE (you needed to have a GAE App even if empty to use it) but that requirement has been relaxed. Source: about 2 years ago
  • Is Cloud Run a good choice for a portfolio website?
    As u/SierraBravoLima said - If you don't really need containerization, you can go with Google App Engine (Standard). If you need to store data, GAE will work with cloud datastore which has a large enough free tier. Source: about 3 years ago
  • Help! Difference between native and datastore
    Datastore mode had its start in App Engine's early days (launched in 2008), where its Datastore was the original scalable NoSQL database provided for all App Engine apps. In 2013, Datastore was made available all developers outside of App Engine, and "re-launched" as Cloud Datastore. In 2014, Google acquired Firebase for its RTDB (real-time database). Both teams worked together for the next 4 years, and in 2017,... Source: over 3 years ago
  • I'm a dev ID 10 T please help me
    Database: datastore should be very cheap, or you could just output as csv text and copy into Google Sheets (free!). Source: over 3 years ago
View more

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

What are some alternatives?

When comparing Google Cloud Datastore and Apify, you can also consider the following products

MarkLogic Server - MarkLogic Server is a multi-model database that has both NoSQL and trusted enterprise data management capabilities.

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.

Valentina Server - Valentina Server is 3 in 1: Valentina DB Server / SQLite Server / Report Server

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

Datomic - The fully transactional, cloud-ready, distributed database

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