Apify Alternative: One REST API vs the Actor Marketplace
Apify is a powerful platform — maybe too powerful. To scrape a page you need an Actor, a dataset, a key-value store, and the Apify SDK. denkbot.dog does 80% of what most projects need with one POST request. No Actor to find, no SDK to install, no platform to learn. The dog just fetches.
What you'd use this for
Developers who found Apify's learning curve too steep for simple scraping tasks, projects that need a quick solution without platform lock-in, teams who want REST API simplicity over a full scraping platform.
How it works
# Apify — Actor model, SDK, storage buckets
npm install apify
# Find the right Actor
# Configure input schema
# Handle dataset output
# Pay per compute unit
# denkbot.dog — one request
curl -X POST https://api.denkbot.dog/scrape \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $DENKBOT_API_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"url": "https://example.com", "format": "json"}'
# Title, text, links, metadata. Done.Questions & Answers
Do I need to understand the Apify Actor model?+
No. denkbot.dog is a plain REST API — POST a URL, get JSON back. No Actor to configure, no dataset to poll, no SDK dependency.
Does denkbot.dog do site crawling like Apify?+
Yes. POST /crawl returns a nested tree of all internal pages up to 500 deep. POST /sitemap extracts all URLs from a domain's sitemap.
What about JavaScript rendering?+
Both support it. denkbot.dog uses Playwright Chromium. Pass renderJs: true — no extra Actor or configuration needed.
Is denkbot.dog cheaper?+
Significantly. Apify charges per compute unit and storage. denkbot.dog is €19/year flat — unlimited requests, no storage costs, no compute metering.
Related topics
Ready to start fetching?
€19/year. Unlimited requests. API key ready in 30 seconds.