Irmu vs Apify
Actor marketplace versus a first-party API platform.
Apify's model is a marketplace of community-built actors plus a hosting platform to run them. It is flexible and covers a huge number of niche targets.
That flexibility comes with variance: actors differ in quality, maintenance and output shape. Irmu is first-party infrastructure with one consistent request and response contract across every target and product.
Side by side
| Capability | Irmu | Apify |
|---|---|---|
| Unified API surface | Scrape, browser, screenshot, extract, proxy | Platform + community actors |
| AI structured extraction | Built in, schema-validated | Depends on the actor |
| Headless browser control | REST actions + remote CDP | Full, self-authored |
| Screenshot & PDF | Included | Basic |
| Residential proxy pool | Residential, ISP and datacenter, city targeting | Country targeting |
| Billing model | Successful requests only | Compute units + proxy |
| Free tier | 200 credits/month, forever | Trial credits |
| Support | Email, on every plan | Plan-dependent |
What Apify does well
- Huge actor library
- Full control over custom logic
- Good for one-off niche targets
Which to choose
Apify wins when you want to write and host arbitrary crawler code. Irmu wins when you want a consistent, supported API contract you can build a product on.
Switching questions
Other comparisons
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Irmu vs Bright Data
Enterprise proxy giant versus a developer-first platform.
Irmu vs Oxylabs
Proxy-first enterprise vendor versus a unified data API.
Try Irmu alongside Apify
1,000 free credits a month — benchmark on your own targets.