Apify vs Browserbase
Apify
Best for a scraper somebody already built $19/Browserbase
Real browsers for agents, billed by the browser hour $20/Apify vs Browserbase is rows against browsers. Browserbase sells headless browsers for your own Playwright or agent code, $20 a month for 100 browser hours and $0.12 an hour after, with a hosted MCP server and Search and Fetch APIs beside them. Apify runs scrapers, yours or a Store developer's, on prepaid usage, and most Store Actors price per result rather than per minute. Pick Browserbase when an agent has to drive a real browser through a site; pick Apify when you want the data and not the browser.
Where they actually differ
Every value comes from the same record that drives the Sourcing APIs listing, so this table cannot disagree with the cards. Accented tags are data one provider returns and the other does not.
| Compare | Apify | Browserbase |
|---|---|---|
| What sets it apart | A marketplace of scrapers behind one API token | Headless browsers by the hour, with Search and Fetch beside them |
| Entry price | $19/mo | $20/mo |
| Unit cost | $0.20 per compute unit | $0.12 per browser hour |
| Billing model | Subscription Pay as you go Free tier | Subscription Pay as you go Free tier |
| Free tier | Free plan, $5 of platform usage a month, no card. Blocked rather than billed when it runs out. | Free plan: 1 browser hour, 3 concurrent browsers, 1,000 Search and 1,000 Fetch calls, 15 minutes a session. |
| GTM motion covered | Source Signal | Source Signal |
| Data returned | FirmographicsWeb pages | FirmographicsTechnographicsIntent and newsWeb pages |
| MCP server | Yes Hosted at mcp.apify.com, OAuth or token | Yes Hosted at mcp.browserbase.com/mcp, API key |
| Interfaces | REST API MCP server Webhooks | REST API MCP server Webhooks |
| Auth | Bearer API token, or OAuth through the hosted MCP server | API key in the x-bb-api-key header |
| Rate limits | 60 requests a second per resource, 400 to run an Actor, 250,000 a minute per account. | Concurrent browsers and a session creation cap: 3 and 5 a minute on Free, 25 and 25 on Developer, 100 and 50 on Startup. Search 2 and Fetch 5 requests a second per project. Over either limit is a 429. |
| Coverage | Global | Global |
| Compliance | SOC 2 GDPR | SOC 2 Type II HIPAA |
| Best for | Best for a scraper somebody already built | Real browsers for agents, billed by the browser hour |
Pick each one when
Apify
- You want rows, priced per result, rather than a browser to drive.
- A Store Actor already covers the source.
- Datasets, schedules and webhooks should come with the run.
Browserbase
- An agent has to click, log in or fill forms in a real browser.
- Your own Playwright code needs somewhere to run, 25 to 100 browsers at once.
- SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA are on the procurement list.
Neither of these indexes anything: they fetch pages. Take a hundred URLs you really need, the hardest ones included, run them through both free tiers, and count the pages that came back usable and what each one cost, retries and multipliers included. That ratio is the number you are actually buying.
What each one costs, tier by tier
Both publish a full rate card, so this comparison runs on numbers rather than on adjectives. Apify lists 4 tiers and Browserbase lists 4. Every figure is read off the vendor's own pricing page, and the pages they came from are listed at the foot of this one.
| The short version | Apify | Browserbase |
|---|---|---|
| Cheapest paid plan with the API | Starter, $19 | Developer, $20 |
| Tiers published | 4 | 4 |
| Free tier | Free plan, $5 of platform usage a month, no card. Blocked rather than billed when it runs out. | Free plan: 1 browser hour, 3 concurrent browsers, 1,000 Search and 1,000 Fetch calls, 15 minutes a session. |
| Unit cost at entry | $0.20 per compute unit | $0.12 per browser hour |
The cheapest paid plan is rarely the plan you end up on, because what moves you up a tier is usually volume rather than a feature. The two rate cards below are what you are choosing between.
Apify
Apify publishes 4 tiers, one of them free, and the paid ladder runs from $19 to $999.
Free
- No credit card
- Compute at $0.20 a CU, 16 GB of RAM
- 5 concurrent runs
- Blocked, not billed, when the $5 runs out
Starter
- $19 of prepaid usage a month
- Compute at $0.20 a CU, 64 GB of RAM
- 32 concurrent runs
- Bronze discount on Store Actors
Scale
- $199 of prepaid usage a month
- Compute at $0.16 a CU, 256 GB of RAM
- 128 concurrent runs
- Silver discount on Store Actors
Business
- $999 of prepaid usage a month
- Compute at $0.13 a CU, 512 GB of RAM
- 256 concurrent runs
- Gold discount and an account manager
Browserbase
Browserbase publishes 4 tiers, one of them free, and the paid ladder runs from $20 to $99, with a quoted tier above it.
Free
- 1 browser hour, 3 concurrent browsers
- 1,000 Search and 1,000 Fetch calls
- 15 minutes a session, 7 days of data retention
Developer
- 100 browser hours, then $0.12 an hour
- 25 concurrent browsers, 25 new sessions a minute
- Fetch at $1 per 1,000 calls after 1,000, proxies $12 a GB
- Metered in browser hours, so no per-request volume is modeled
Startup
- 500 browser hours, then $0.10 an hour
- 100 concurrent browsers, 50 new sessions a minute
- Fetch at $0.50 per 1,000 calls after 10,000, proxies $10 a GB
- Metered in browser hours, so no per-request volume is modeled
Scale
- 250+ concurrent browsers, usage-based hours
- Verified Agents and captcha solving
- HIPAA BAA, DPA and SSO
How this plays out once it is running
Browserbase meters browser hours and concurrent browsers. Developer is $20 a month for 100 hours and 25 browsers, Startup $99 for 500 hours and 100, and both keep running past the allowance at $0.12 and $0.10 an hour. Search and Fetch are sold per call beside them, Fetch at $1 per 1,000 after the first 1,000 on Developer.
Apify meters compute units, 1 GB of RAM for an hour, at $0.20 on Free and Starter, unless the Actor prices per event. A browser hour and a compute unit are not the same thing, so the two cannot be converted honestly. The comparable line is proxy traffic: $8 a GB on Apify Starter against $12 on Browserbase Developer.
What each one is genuinely good at
These are the things that keep somebody paying after the first month, which is a different question from what the marketing page leads with.
Apify
Rows instead of a browser
A Store Actor returns a dataset with the browser work inside the price, priced per result where its developer chose pay per event. With Browserbase the browser is the product and the extraction is your code.
Cheaper proxy traffic
Residential proxy at $8 a GB on Free and Starter and $7 on Business, against $12 a GB on Browserbase Developer and $10 on Startup.
A free plan that can finish a job
$5 of usage a month buys real runs, blocked rather than billed when it ends. Browserbase Free is one browser hour, enough to prove the connection and little more.
Browserbase
A real browser an agent can drive
Sessions that click, log in and fill forms, with your Playwright or agent code in charge. A scraper returns what it was written to return; a browser does whatever the agent decides next.
Concurrency and session limits are published
25 concurrent browsers and 25 new sessions a minute on Developer, 100 and 50 on Startup, with a 429 past either. Search is 2 requests a second and Fetch 5 per project.
SOC 2 Type II and HIPAA
Browserbase lists both, with a HIPAA BAA on Scale. Apify's record lists SOC 2 and GDPR.
Where each one falls down
Every provider on this site has a case it handles badly, and the people who find out are the ones who bought it for that case. These are the ones worth knowing before you sign rather than after.
Apify
Not a browser your agent can steer
A Store Actor runs to completion with the input it was given. An agent that decides its next click from what it sees needs a live browser session, which is Browserbase's product.
Pay-per-usage runs are priced after the fact
An Actor without per-event pricing bills compute units, and the cost depends on how long the site takes. Run a small input and read the usage chart before scaling up.
Browserbase
Hours, not results
A browser hour yields as many pages as your code fetches in it, so the cost per row depends on your scraper rather than on Browserbase. There is no per-record price to forecast on.
The extraction is yours
Browserbase hands you a browser and a Fetch API; the parsing, retries and storage are your code. That is the right trade for an agent and a lot of work for a list.
Using Apify and Browserbase together
Teams comparing these two often end up running both, and the arrangement below is the one they settle on.
They meet in the middle of an agent stack. Apify supplies the lists, a Store Actor returning rows on a schedule, and Browserbase supplies the browser for the few steps that need a session, such as a page behind a login the agent holds.
Both ship hosted MCP servers, Apify with OAuth and Browserbase with its API key, so one agent can call either. Tell it which to use: rows from Apify, interaction through Browserbase.
Proxy traffic is the cost to watch on both. Route the high-volume, low-value fetches through whichever is cheaper per gigabyte on your plan, $8 on Apify Starter against $12 on Browserbase Developer.
Apify or Browserbase, for you
Two questions, answered from the same records as the rest of this page. Nothing is sent anywhere and there is no result to email yourself.
Each answer leans one way. The recommendation appears here once you have picked at least two.
A tool like this can only weigh what is on the page. It does not know your workload, and the one test that does is the bake-off on this page: your own rows, queries or records, run on the cheapest entry each side offers.
Where an answer leans on a certification or an integration, it means that vendor publishes it on the pages this directory read, which is not the same as the other one lacking it. The sources are listed at the foot of the page.
Where the data comes from, and what you may do with it
The question that arrives late and expensively is who is allowed to hold the data. These are the fields each one returns, the coverage it claims and the compliance it publishes.
| Provider | Fields returned | Coverage | Compliance | Redistribution |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Apify | Firmographics, Web pages | Global | SOC 2 GDPR | Not stated |
| Browserbase | Firmographics, Technographics, Intent and news, Web pages | Global | SOC 2 Type II HIPAA | Not stated |
None of these states a redistribution position on its pricing or docs pages. Internally that never matters. Put the rows in something your customers can see and it becomes the question your legal team asks first.
Two practical notes that apply to every provider on this page. A compliance badge describes the vendor rather than your use of it, so a GDPR DPA does not give you a lawful basis for the outreach you send. And every one of these vendors runs its own opt-out, which means a person who asks you to delete their record has to be removed from your copy as well as from theirs.
Moving between Apify and Browserbase
Most readers of this page are already on one of these two, and the order below catches the expensive mistakes while they are still free.
Measure the thing you are about to lose
Replay 100 of the queries, URLs or lookups you really send through Apify and record the usable results, the failures and what each one cost. Without that baseline every provider looks cheaper per call than the one you are paying for today.
Check which fields change
Browserbase returns every field Apify does, so nothing downstream has to change shape. Confirm the values rather than the keys: the same field can be named, typed or formatted differently on the other side.
Rewrite the auth and the limits, in that order
Apify authenticates with a bearer API token, or OAuth through the hosted MCP server. Browserbase uses an API key in the x-bb-api-key header.
The limits are the part that bites later. Apify's limits: 60 requests a second per resource, 400 to run an Actor, 250,000 a minute per account.
Browserbase's limits: concurrent browsers and a session creation cap: 3 and 5 a minute on Free, 25 and 25 on Developer, 100 and 50 on Startup. Search 2 and Fetch 5 requests a second per project. Over either limit is a 429. A loop tuned to the first will either crawl or get throttled on the second.
Run both for one billing cycle
Keep the old key live and route a slice of real traffic to the new one. A month is the shortest honest test, because the limits and the overage rate only show up under a real month's load, and those are where the surprises live.
Cancel on the renewal date
Annual seats and prepaid usage rarely refund mid-term. Check what the contract says about the time you have already paid for, and time the switch to the renewal date.
The step people skip is the first one, and it is the only one that cannot be done after the fact. Once the old key is off you have nothing to compare the new one against, so a provider that is quietly worse on your workload looks like a provider that is fine.
The wider field for both
Sometimes the answer is neither, and the reason you are comparing these two points somewhere else entirely: Apify alternatives and Browserbase alternatives both start from the reason people leave.
Apify alternatives
4People rarely leave Apify because a scraper failed. They leave because the bill is set by whoever wrote the Actor, and the plan is dollars that expire.
See the alternatives →Browserbase alternatives
4Browserbase rents you a browser by the hour. Most GTM jobs never needed a browser; they needed the page it would have loaded, which is where the Browserbase alternatives below start.
See the alternatives →Everything in Source
28The full category these two sit in, filtered by data returned, billing model and entry price.
Browse the category →Related comparisons
The 52 providers behind every pairing here are in the main listing.
Pairings that share a side with this one: Apify vs Bright Data, Apify vs PhantomBuster and Apify vs Browse AI.
And: Apify vs Oxylabs and Apify vs ZenRows. Every comparison in the directory is on the compare hub.
Apify vs Firecrawl
A marketplace that runs other people's crawlers against one endpoint built to turn a page into Markdown. Raw HTTP is cheaper on Apify; a rendered page is close.
Compare them →Apify vs Bright Data
Two platforms selling scrapers, an unblocker and proxies, and pricing the unblocker identically on the entry tier. Search is where they part.
Compare them →Apify vs PhantomBuster
Both bill for running code rather than for rows. PhantomBuster sells execution hours through your own accounts; Apify sells prepaid usage and lets each Actor price its results.
Compare them →Testing providers one at a time? Run the waterfall in Clay.
Clay runs a waterfall across 150+ data providers from one table, without a separate contract with each. A lookup that finds nothing costs no data credit, and the free plan includes 500 actions a month.
Frontal is a Clay Elite Studio Partner.
Apify and Browserbase, answered
Read from the same records that drive the table above.
Is Apify or Browserbase cheaper?
Both have a free tier that carries the API, so neither costs anything to start; what each one includes is in the next answer. Per unit they meter different things, a compute unit against a browser hour, so the cost model above is the comparison, not the rate card.
Can I try Apify and Browserbase for free?
Apify: Free plan, $5 of platform usage a month, no card. Blocked rather than billed when it runs out. Browserbase: Free plan: 1 browser hour, 3 concurrent browsers, 1,000 Search and 1,000 Fetch calls, 15 minutes a session.
What are the rate limits on Apify and Browserbase?
Apify: 60 requests a second per resource, 400 to run an Actor, 250,000 a minute per account. Browserbase: Concurrent browsers and a session creation cap: 3 and 5 a minute on Free, 25 and 25 on Developer, 100 and 50 on Startup. Search 2 and Fetch 5 requests a second per project. Over either limit is a 429.
Do Apify and Browserbase both have MCP servers?
Both do. Apify: Hosted at mcp.apify.com, OAuth or token. Browserbase: Hosted at mcp.browserbase.com/mcp, API key.
Which is better, Apify or Browserbase?
Apify vs Browserbase is rows against browsers. Pick Browserbase when an agent has to drive a real browser through a site; pick Apify when you want the data and not the browser.
What are the downsides of Apify and Browserbase?
Apify: not a browser your agent can steer; Pay-per-usage runs are priced after the fact. Browserbase: Hours, not results; the extraction is yours. The Limits section above has each one in full.
Can you use Apify and Browserbase together?
They meet in the middle of an agent stack. Apify supplies the lists, a Store Actor returning rows on a schedule, and Browserbase supplies the browser for the few steps that need a session, such as a page behind a login the agent holds.
Can I migrate from Apify to Browserbase without losing data?
The fields survive: Browserbase returns everything Apify does. What changes is the auth and the limits. Either way, replay a hundred real URLs through both and count the usable pages before you switch.