Best Web Scraping Developer Tools on Apify (2026)
Web scraping developer tools covers no-code scrapers, browser automation frameworks, and data extraction utilities for developers.
From rapid prototyping with Cheerio to full browser automation with Playwright, the Apify Store has developer-grade scraping tools for every technical stack. Here are the most-used actors by developers.
Top Actors in This Category
1. Website Content Crawler — 106K users · 4.6 ⭐ · Pay-per-usage
Crawl entire websites and output clean Markdown for RAG pipelines, LLM knowledge bases, AI agent training data, and vector database ingestion. Handles JS rendering, sitemaps, and strips boilerplate. Try Website Content Crawler on Apify →
2. Web Scraper — 106K users · 4.7 ⭐ · Pay-per-usage
Versatile no-code browser crawler. Extract structured data from any website using a custom JavaScript page function with recursive link following and full Chromium support. Try Web Scraper on Apify →
3. Cheerio Scraper — 13K users · 5.0 ⭐ · Pay-per-usage
Rated 5.0 ⭐ — the highest-rated scraper in its class. Ultra-fast HTML scraper using jQuery-style Cheerio selectors; up to 20x faster than full-browser solutions for static sites. Try Cheerio Scraper on Apify →
4. Puppeteer Scraper — 12K users · 4.9 ⭐ · Pay-per-usage
Full programmatic Puppeteer control with 4.9 ⭐ rating. Use it for complex logins, form filling, and advanced headless Chrome automation workflows with a custom page function. Try Puppeteer Scraper on Apify →
5. Mass Profile Posts Scraper for LinkedIn | No Cookies
Batch-scrape LinkedIn posts from hundreds of profiles in a single run without authentication. Input a list of profile URLs and get all posts with engagement metrics in one structured output. Try Mass Profile Posts Scraper for LinkedIn on Apify →
6. YouTube Transcript Scraper — Captions & AI Fallback
Extract transcripts from any YouTube video, playlist, or channel. Uses native captions when available and Whisper AI speech-to-text as a fallback — no external API key needed. Returns five output formats: timestamped JSON, plain text, LLM-optimised text (filler stripped), SRT, and VTT. The transcript_llm field eliminates pre-processing before feeding into LangChain, LlamaIndex, or any RAG pipeline.
Try YouTube Transcript Scraper — Captions & AI Fallback on Apify →
7. Reddit Scraper Pro
Advanced Reddit scraper with deep comment thread support, multi-subreddit crawling, and search operator filtering. Returns full post and comment trees with scores, timestamps, and author data. Try Reddit Scraper Pro on Apify →
8. Profile Reactions Scraper for LinkedIn [No Cookies]
Extract reaction data from LinkedIn posts without cookies — see who reacted, reaction type (Like, Love, Insightful), and author details. Useful for audience analysis and engagement tracking. Try Profile Reactions Scraper for LinkedIn on Apify →
9. Playwright Scraper — 5.2K users · 2.4 ⭐ · Pay-per-usage
Multi-browser scraper supporting Chromium, Firefox, and WebKit for modern SPAs and complex automation. More capable than Puppeteer for cross-browser compatibility scenarios. Try Playwright Scraper on Apify →
Choosing the right scraper for your project
| Scraper | Best For | Speed | JS Rendering |
|---|---|---|---|
| Cheerio Scraper | Static HTML sites, speed | Fastest | No |
| Web Scraper | Any site, no-code | Medium | Yes |
| Puppeteer Scraper | Complex automation, login | Medium | Yes |
| Playwright Scraper | Cross-browser SPAs | Medium | Yes |
| Website Content Crawler | RAG/LLM data, entire sites | Slow | Yes |
Apify offers $5 in free monthly credits—enough to prototype any of these actors on the free tier.
Use Puppeteer Scraper (12K users, 4.9 ⭐) or Playwright Scraper for SPAs that require JavaScript execution. For simple content extraction from JS sites, Web Scraper (106K users) handles most cases. Use Cheerio Scraper only for static HTML pages.
All browser-based scrapers (Web Scraper, Puppeteer, Playwright, Website Content Crawler) are pay-per-usage based on compute time. Cheerio Scraper is the most cost-effective since it uses HTTP requests without a browser. Apify provides $5 in free monthly credits.
Yes. Web Scraper, Puppeteer Scraper, and Playwright Scraper all support custom page functions — JavaScript code that runs in the browser context of each scraped page. You can interact with the DOM, extract data, and pass values to the next request.