Apify alternatives for scrapers vs live trend APIs

Apify is the right pick when the job is running Store Actors against arbitrary sites, with prepaid platform usage and a hosted MCP at mcp.apify.com. It is the wrong pick when the job is a live ranked trend board. Firecrawl Hobby is $19 per month for markdown pages (1 credit per scrape). Bright Data SERP pay-as-you-go is $1.50 per 1,000 successful requests. Oxylabs Web Scraper API Micro is $49 per month. Trends MCP Starter is $19 per month for 1,000 MCP or REST calls across keyword sources and live feeds. None of those tools replace Apify's Actor runtime. Pick by job, then compare the public grids fetched 30 August 2026.

Which Apify alternative fits the actual job?

The substitute depends on whether the pipeline needs HTML from any URL, markdown from a crawl, search-engine SERPs, or a ranked live board that already exists as an API.

Apify's public grid (apify.com/pricing, 30 August 2026) is a platform fee plus compute: Free $0 with $5 included usage; Starter $29 per month ($26 per month billed annually, 10% off) with $29 included usage; Scale $199 / $179 yearly with $199 included; Business $999 / $899 yearly with $999 included. Compute units are $0.20 per CU on Free and Starter, $0.16 on Scale, $0.13 on Business, where 1 CU equals 1 GB of RAM for one hour. That billing is correct for crawlers, browsers, and Store Actors. It is overhead for a Google Trends RSS pull that a dedicated board API already returns.

Trends MCP is first only on live trend boards and keyword growth for AI agents. It does not fetch arbitrary URLs, solve CAPTCHAs, or run a headless browser. A team that needs Instagram comments, Google Maps emails, or a custom crawler stays on Apify, Bright Data, or Oxylabs.

How does Apify bill Compute Units versus Store events?

Apify charges two layers, and mixing them up is how invoices surprise people.

Platform usage (apify.com/pricing FAQ, 30 August 2026) covers Actor runs, proxies, data transfer, and storage. Each paid plan prepays a dollar bucket equal to the monthly fee. Unused credits expire at cycle end. Paying customers who exceed the bucket keep running and pay overage; Free accounts are blocked until the next cycle. Residential proxy is $8/GB on Free and Starter, $7.5/GB on Scale, $7/GB on Business. SERP proxy is $2.5 per 1,000 on Free/Starter, $2 on Scale, $1.7 on Business. The Unblocker add-on (product name) is $1.5 per 1,000 requests on Free/Starter, $1.25 on Scale, $1 on Business.

Store Actors then add a second meter. Pay-per-event Actors charge a fixed event price; most of those include platform usage in the event, some do not. Pay-per-usage Actors charge only platform usage. The Google Trends Scraper on Apify Store (automation-lab/google-trends-scraper, HTML storefront 30 August 2026) is pay-per-event and states platform usage is not billed on top. Event list from the Actor pricing tab: run started $0.005 at every Store discount tier; trending topic scraped $0.00115 on Free down to $0.00036 on Diamond; keyword analyzed $0.138 on Free down to $0.0336 on Diamond. The same page's "from $72.00 / 1,000 keyword analyzeds" headline is the Gold-tier $0.072 event times 1,000, not a separate SKU. Bronze trending runs that return about 20 topics are estimated at about $0.025 including the run-start charge. Keyword mode uses 1024 MB RAM. HTML storefront stats on this fetch: 268 total users, 63 monthly, 99.8% runs succeeded. The Actor's markdown mirror the same day listed 205 total and 42 monthly. Cite the HTML numbers, and treat the markdown counts as a stale copy.

Concurrent-run caps disagree across Apify's own docs. The pricing page table lists max concurrent runs as Free 5, Starter 32, Scale 128, Business 256. The platform limits page (docs.apify.com/platform/limits, 30 August 2026) lists "Maximum number of concurrent Actor runs per user" as Free 25, Starter 32, Scale 128, Business 256. Same Starter/Scale/Business figures, different Free figure. An add-on row also prices "Concurrent runs" at $5 per run. Do not assume the Free cap is 5 or 25 without checking the live Billing settings. Students get 30% off Starter and Scale; startups get 30% off Scale. Those discounts do not change CU math.

What Cursor MCP JSON does Apify use versus Trends MCP?

Apify's hosted server is https://mcp.apify.com over Streamable HTTP. Official Cursor JSON (docs.apify.com/integrations/mcp, 30 August 2026) is a URL only, with OAuth on first connect, or the same URL plus an Authorization: Bearer header for an Apify token. There is no transport field in that snippet. Defaults load Actor search, docs search, and the RAG Web Browser Actor. Query parameters can pin tools; keep those flags inside a config file, not in prose. The server allows 30 requests per second per user. It excludes full-permission Actors and rental Actors. Unauthenticated calls work only for Actor discovery and docs lookup (search-actors, fetch-actor-details, search-apify-docs, fetch-apify-docs). Running Actors always needs a token. Docs still say SSE transport will be removed on 1 April 2026; the GitHub README the same day says the /sse endpoint is already gone. Point Cursor at the bare https://mcp.apify.com host.

Trends MCP uses a different host pair and a different Cursor shape (MCP server for Cursor, docs.md 30 August 2026). Bearer traffic goes to https://api.trendsmcp.ai/mcp. Claude.ai Connectors OAuth uses the www host, which is a different server. Cursor config from docs:

"trends-mcp": {
  "url": "https://api.trendsmcp.ai/mcp",
  "transport": "http",
  "headers": { "Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" }
}

Three tools: get_time_series (~5 years weekly, one source plus keyword), get_growth (all periods in one call still count as one request), get_top_trends (one live feed per MCP call; default limit 25, max 200). A Google Trends board call is:

{"mode": "get_top_trends", "type": "Google Trends", "limit": 10}

That is the Google Trends MCP for Cursor path: no Actor RAM, no CU clock, no Store event table. HTML /pricing the same day listed Free at 100 requests per month, top 10 trends, 12 months of history, 24-hour delayed data, and "35+ data sources"; Starter $19 monthly or $16 / $192 yearly; Pro $49 or $39 / $468; Business $199 or $159 / $1,910; yearly toggle copy "2 months free"; Pro 50 keyword alerts, Business 250. The counter on that HTML fetch read 9,562,706 API calls served. Paid-plan fine print said the card is charged after day 7; the FAQ said the card is collected at checkout but not charged until day 8. Docs.md listed 15 keyword sources (no python) and 24 named live feeds, including the four by Category boards. data-sources.md listed the same 15 keyword sources and only 20 live feeds, omitting every by Category type, while docs.md still said official category names live on /data-sources. llms.txt opened with "plus 21 live feeds" and then printed the 24-feed table. The MCP get_growth schema still listed python. Do not flatten those counts to a single number.

Apify MCP is the agent front door to scrapers. Trends MCP is the agent front door to boards. Pasting Apify's URL into Cursor does not return get_top_trends. Pasting Trends MCP's URL does not run call-actor.

When is Firecrawl a better Apify substitute than a proxy vendor?

Firecrawl is the substitute when the output should be markdown (or JSON) from a known URL list, not a browser farm.

Public Firecrawl grid (firecrawl.dev/pricing, 30 August 2026): Free 1,000 credits per month, 2 concurrent requests, no card. Hobby $19 per month or $16 per month billed annually ($190 per year), 5,000 credits, 5 concurrent. Standard $99 / $83 yearly ($990 per year), 100,000 credits, 25 concurrent. Growth $399 / $333 yearly ($3,990 per year), 500,000 credits, 50 concurrent. Scale $749 / $599 yearly ($7,190 per year), 1,000,000 credits, 100 concurrent. Scrape, crawl, map, and monitor cost 1 credit per page. Search costs 2 credits per 10 results. Interact costs 2 credits per browser minute. JSON format adds 4 credits per page. Failed requests are not billed. Credits do not roll over on self-serve plans. Auto-reload buys $5 batches (1,000 credits on Hobby, 2,000 on Standard, 2,500 on Growth, 5,000 on Scale).

That grid is cheaper than Apify Starter for "turn these URLs into markdown." It is not a Google Trends board, and it is not a residential proxy pool. ScrapingBee's public cards the same day started at Freelance $49 per month for 250,000 API credits and 50 concurrent requests, Startup $99 for 1,000,000 credits and 100 concurrent, Business+ $599 for 8,000,000 credits and 400 concurrent, plus 1,000 free credits with no card. Use ScrapingBee when the job is a hosted scrape API with geotargeting and screenshots on the marketing grid. Confirm feature checkmarks on the live table before buying; the rendered pricing matrix on this fetch was ambiguous on which columns apply to Freelance.

How much does Bright Data SERP API cost on the public grid?

Bright Data is the substitute when the job is search-engine HTML or JSON at volume, with unlimited concurrency on the SERP product.

brightdata.com/pricing/serp on 30 August 2026 listed Free 5,000 records per month, no card; pay-as-you-go $1.50 per 1,000 successful requests; Scale $499 per month with 380,000 requests included and $1.30 per 1,000 extra; Enterprise custom. FAQ: each API execution counts as a request; in async mode only the send is counted. FAQ also claimed response time under 5 seconds and 195 countries. Deposit match copy offered dollar-for-dollar on the first deposit up to $500. USD is binding. This is a SERP product, not a trend board. SKU numbers above are from the pricing cards, not testimonial quotes.

Oxylabs Web Scraper API (oxylabs.io/products/scraper-api/web/pricing, 30 August 2026) is the other enterprise scrape grid. Free trial up to 2,000 results, no card. Micro $49 per month, up to 98,000 results, from $0.50 per 1,000, 50 requests per second. Starter $99, up to 220,000, from $0.45 per 1,000. Business $999, up to 3,330,000, from $0.30 per 1,000, 100 requests per second. Custom+ from $0.25 per 1,000. Target rates on Micro without JS: Amazon $0.50/1k, Google $1.00/1k, other $1.15/1k; with JS $1.35/1k. Success-based billing: 5xx and 6xx from Oxylabs errors are free; 2xx and 4xx count. The hub pricing page the same day said Web Scraper API "starts from $49/mo" and residential proxies "starts from $6/GB." Do not quote older pack prices from prior runs without a fresh pack page.

A Google Trends RSS job does not need that proxy stack. The Apify Actor's trending mode is pure HTTP in about 4 seconds. Trends MCP get_top_trends with type set to Google Trends skips the scraper entirely. Related-queries and regional interest from the Google Trends explore UI still need a browser Actor or a Trends Explore API, which Trends MCP does not claim.

For a longer Apify SKU walkthrough see the Apify pricing post. Refresh these cards every 6 to 12 months.

FAQ

Is Trends MCP an Apify alternative?

Only for live trend boards and keyword growth series. Apify runs scrapers, browsers, and Store Actors against arbitrary sites. Trends MCP returns get_top_trends feeds and get_growth / get_time_series for named sources. A crawler workflow that needs HTML from any URL should keep Apify, Firecrawl, Bright Data, or Oxylabs.

How much does Apify Starter cost, and what is included?

Starter is $29 per month, or $26 per month billed annually, with $29 of prepaid platform usage, $0.20 per CU, 64 GB max RAM, and 32 concurrent runs on the pricing table. Bronze Store discounts apply to pay-per-event Actors. Unused prepaid usage expires at cycle end. Confirm concurrent-run caps against Billing settings because the Free-plan cap is 5 on pricing and 25 on the limits doc.

Can Apify MCP run every Actor in the Store?

No. The hosted MCP server excludes full-permission Actors and rental Actors. Default tools cover search, docs, and RAG Web Browser unless the URL pins a list. Running an Actor requires an Apify token. Rate limit is 30 requests per second per user.

Should a Google Trends monitor use an Apify Actor or Trends MCP?

Use Trends MCP get_top_trends when the need is the current ranked board (default 25 rows, max 200). Use the Store Actor when the need is RSS extras (news thumbnails, traffic labels) or explore-page related queries and regional interest. The Actor's Bronze trending estimate was about $0.025 per ~20-topic run. A Trends MCP Free account is 100 requests per month with the HTML Free caps (top 10, 12 months, 24-hour delay) documented on /pricing.

Do Firecrawl Hobby and Trends MCP Starter cost the same?

Both list $19 per month on the 30 August 2026 fetches (Firecrawl Hobby also $16 / $190 yearly). The units differ. Firecrawl meters credits (1 per scraped page on Hobby's 5,000 monthly credits). Trends MCP meters successful API or MCP calls (1,000 on Starter; get_growth periods in one call still count as one request). Equal dollars, different jobs.

Sources (all accessed 30 August 2026): Apify pricing; Apify platform limits; Apify MCP server; Google Trends Scraper Actor; Firecrawl pricing; Bright Data SERP API pricing; Oxylabs Web Scraper API pricing; ScrapingBee pricing; Trends MCP HTML /pricing, docs.md, data-sources.md, and llms.txt.