MDisBetter vs Apify — Free Web Tool vs Scraping Platform
Apify is the heavyweight: a full scraping platform built around "Actors" (containerised scrapers), with scheduling, proxy rotation, residential IPs, headless browser pools, and the operational machinery you need to scrape millions of pages reliably. MDisBetter's URL-to-Markdown tool is the opposite end of the spectrum: paste a URL, click Convert, get Markdown back, no account, no setup, no infrastructure. Different problems entirely.
| Feature | MDisBetter | Apify |
|---|---|---|
| URL → Markdown | ✓ | Via actors / custom code |
| No-signup web UI for one-off conversion | ✓ | ✕ |
| Production scraping platform (actors, scheduling, queues) | ✕ | ✓ |
| Proxy rotation & residential IPs | ✕ | ✓ |
| Headless browser pool at scale | Smart fallback | ✓ |
| Anti-blocking infrastructure | ✕ | ✓ |
| API access | ✕ | ✓ |
| Other input formats | PDF, DOCX, audio, video + 20 tools | Web pages focus |
| Pricing | Free tier + $10/mo Pro | Pay-as-you-go credits + paid plans |
Frequently asked questions
Does Apify have an API?
Yes — Apify exposes a full REST API, an Apify SDK (Node.js and Python), CLI tooling, and per-actor APIs once you publish or subscribe to one. That's a core part of their value proposition. MDisBetter is a web tool only today — no public API, no SDK, no CLI. The two products sit at very different points on the dev-ergonomics spectrum.
When should I pick Apify over MDisBetter?
Whenever you need to scrape at scale (thousands+ of pages on a recurring schedule), encounter sites with sophisticated anti-bot measures, need residential proxies, or are building a product feature around scraping. Their entire infrastructure is engineered for production reliability at volume.
When should I pick MDisBetter over Apify?
When you have one URL in hand and want one Markdown file out, right now, with no signup or setup. Or when URL conversion is one part of a workflow that also needs PDF, DOCX, audio, video, or post-processing utilities — our suite covers the broader Markdown surface, Apify is web-only. For solo researchers, journalists, content writers, and anyone whose use case is "this page, that .md file", we win on friction.
Pricing comparison?
Apify uses pay-as-you-go credits priced for sustained scraping workloads — easily $50–500+/month for a serious project, paying for compute, proxies, and platform features. MDisBetter is free for casual use without signup, $10/mo Pro for the full suite. For a one-page conversion, MDisBetter is free; for a 100,000-page recurring crawl with proxies, Apify's price reflects the infrastructure you're renting.
Can I use both?
Yes, and they don't conflict. Apify for the production scraping pipeline, MDisBetter for ad-hoc conversions and the long tail of mixed-format inputs (PDFs, recordings) where Apify isn't the right tool. Output is interoperable — both produce Markdown that downstream tools (LLMs, vector DBs, Obsidian) treat identically.