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Most buyers should pick Apify.
Apify is a hosted Actor platform and marketplace for collecting web data: use it when your stack needs scrapers, custom data pipelines, or agent connections through MCP, CLI, or Skills. Captain Data is a hosted REST API for people and company search and enrichment. Its fit is narrower, but its endpoints return structured profile data from LinkedIn URLs, names, and domains. Apify publishes plan prices; Captain Data’s USD prices are not published, so confirm expected credit costs before committing.
01Side by side
| Apify | Captain Data | |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Monthly prepaid usage plus compute-unit charges | Credit-based usage; USD prices unpublished |
| Free tier | $5 monthly prepaid usage; $0.20 per compute unit | 100 free credits; no ongoing free plan |
| API and SDKs | Run Actors through an API; SDK languages unspecified | REST API with X-API-KEY authentication |
| CLI and docs | CLI, MCP, Skills, Actor templates and guides | REST endpoint reference and interactive console |
| Integrations | Zapier, GitHub, Sheets, Claude, n8n, Slack, MCP | REST clients; accepts LinkedIn URLs, names, domains |
| Deployment model | Hosted cloud Actor runs and infrastructure | Hosted people-and-company REST API |
| Limits and scaling | 5–256 concurrent runs by plan; Enterprise custom | Credit-based usage; volume pricing |
| Lock-in and data export | Export scraped data; Actors run in Apify cloud | Database export available at custom pricing |
Apify Choose Apify if
- Choose Apify if you need ready-made web scrapers across multiple sites.
- Choose Apify if you want to build and deploy custom Actors.
- Choose Apify if your agents or stack use MCP, CLI, or Skills.
Captain Data Choose Captain Data if
- Choose Captain Data if you need people-profile enrichment from LinkedIn URLs.
- Choose Captain Data if your application needs company search and enrichment endpoints.
- Choose Captain Data if you want a focused REST API for profile data.
02Pricing at real usage
Apify’s Free plan includes $5 in monthly prepaid usage and charges $0.20 per compute unit. Starter is $19 per month, including $19 prepaid usage, with the same compute-unit rate. Scale is $199 per month at $0.16 per compute unit; Business is $999 at $0.13. Enterprise has custom pricing. Annual billing is 10% lower, unused prepaid credits expire each cycle, and overages appear on the next invoice. Extra concurrent runs cost $5 per run.
Captain Data’s homepage offers 100 free credits, but it has no ongoing free plan. Silver shows 20,000 credits and up to 20,000 records monthly. The pricing page shows a monthly EUR estimate, while USD prices and annual equivalents are not published. Growth and Enterprise use credit pricing; Titanium offers volume pricing and up to 96% off with annual billing. Ask for a quote based on endpoint mix and expected volume.
03API, SDKs and integration
Apify runs Actors in its hosted platform. You can run them through an API, export their data, or build and deploy your own using code templates and guides. For AI-agent connections, Apify lists MCP, CLI, and Skills. Its homepage also lists integrations including Zapier, GitHub, Google Sheets, Claude, n8n, Google Drive, Slack, LangChain, and LlamaIndex. The homepage does not name language-specific SDKs.
Captain Data exposes a REST API at https://api.captaindata.com/v1, authenticated with an X-API-KEY header. Its seven endpoints cover people and company enrichment, search, and lookup. Requests can use LinkedIn URLs, names, or domains, depending on the endpoint. The homepage includes an interactive console, sample responses, and endpoint documentation. It does not name language-specific SDKs or a CLI. Both products can fit into an application that makes HTTP requests; Apify is the broader option when the integration also needs scraping workflows or Actor orchestration.
04Open source, self-hosting and lock-in
Neither vendor states an open-source licence or self-hosting option on its homepage. Treat both as hosted services, and ask each vendor about deployment and data-handling requirements before building around it.
Apify lets users export scraped data, but Actors run on its cloud platform, where the listed infrastructure includes proxies, deployment, monitoring, and data processing. Moving a workflow would mean replacing the Actor runtime and any platform-specific integrations, not just copying the exported dataset. Captain Data returns structured profile data through its API; database export is available at custom pricing. Ask about export format, frequency, and cost before relying on bulk extraction. In either case, keep your application’s data model separate from vendor-specific responses so you can adapt downstream code if you change providers.
Questions people ask
Is Apify or Captain Data cheaper?
Apify publishes monthly prices, starting with a Free plan and a $19 Starter plan; compute-unit rates vary by plan. Captain Data uses credits, but the vendor does not publish USD plan prices. Its homepage offers 100 free credits. Compare Captain Data’s quote against your expected endpoint usage before choosing on cost.
Can Captain Data replace Apify?
Not for general web scraping. Captain Data’s API focuses on people and company search, enrichment, and employee lookup. Apify offers ready-made and custom Actors for collecting web data across categories such as social media, maps, and e-commerce. Choose based on whether you need profile data or a broader scraping runtime.
Can I self-host either product?
Neither vendor states a self-hosting option or open-source licence on its homepage. Apify describes cloud infrastructure for running Actors, while Captain Data exposes a hosted REST API. If your deployment policy requires running the service in your own environment, ask both vendors before adopting either.
How do I export data from Apify and Captain Data?
Apify supports exporting scraped data. Captain Data offers database export at custom pricing, and its API returns structured profile data. Confirm formats, bulk-export costs, and retention terms with the vendors. Keep a vendor-independent schema in your application to reduce the work involved in switching.