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Web Scraper

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Web Scraper

Web Scraper

apify/web-scraper

Developed by

Apify

Maintained by Apify

Crawls arbitrary websites using the Chrome browser and extracts structured data from web pages using a provided JavaScript function. The Actor supports both recursive crawling and lists of URLs, and automatically manages concurrency for maximum performance.

4.5 (22)

Pricing

Pay per usage

562

Monthly users

3.5k

Runs succeeded

>99%

Response time

10 days

Last modified

2 months ago

You can access the Web Scraper programmatically from your own applications by using the Apify API. You can also choose the language preference from below. To use the Apify API, you’ll need an Apify account and your API token, found in Integrations settings in Apify Console.

1# Start Server-Sent Events (SSE) session and keep it running
2curl "https://actors-mcp-server.apify.actor/sse?token=<YOUR_API_TOKEN>&actors=apify/web-scraper"
3
4# Session id example output:
5# event: endpoint
6# data: /message?sessionId=9d820491-38d4-4c7d-bb6a-3b7dc542f1fa

Using Web Scraper via Model Context Protocol (MCP) server

MCP server lets you use Web Scraper within your AI workflows. Send API requests to trigger actions and receive real-time results. Take the received sessionId and use it to communicate with the MCP server. The message starts the Web Scraper Actor with the provided input.

1curl -X POST "https://actors-mcp-server.apify.actor/message?token=<YOUR_API_TOKEN>&session_id=<SESSION_ID>" -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d '{
2  "jsonrpc": "2.0",
3  "id": 1,
4  "method": "tools/call",
5  "params": {
6    "arguments": {
7      "runMode": "DEVELOPMENT",
8      "startUrls": [
9            {
10                  "url": "https://crawlee.dev"
11            }
12      ],
13      "linkSelector": "a[href]",
14      "globs": [
15            {
16                  "glob": "https://crawlee.dev/*/*"
17            }
18      ],
19      "pseudoUrls": [],
20      "excludes": [
21            {
22                  "glob": "/**/*.{png,jpg,jpeg,pdf}"
23            }
24      ],
25      "pageFunction": "// The function accepts a single argument: the \\"context\\" object.\\n// For a complete list of its properties and functions,\\n// see https://apify.com/apify/web-scraper#page-function \\nasync function pageFunction(context) {\\n    // This statement works as a breakpoint when you'\''re trying to debug your code. Works only with Run mode: DEVELOPMENT!\\n    // debugger; \\n\\n    // jQuery is handy for finding DOM elements and extracting data from them.\\n    // To use it, make sure to enable the \\"Inject jQuery\\" option.\\n    const $ = context.jQuery;\\n    const pageTitle = $('\''title'\'').first().text();\\n    const h1 = $('\''h1'\'').first().text();\\n    const first_h2 = $('\''h2'\'').first().text();\\n    const random_text_from_the_page = $('\''p'\'').first().text();\\n\\n\\n    // Print some information to actor log\\n    context.log.info(`URL: ${context.request.url}, TITLE: ${pageTitle}`);\\n\\n    // Manually add a new page to the queue for scraping.\\n   await context.enqueueRequest({ url: '\''http://www.example.com'\'' });\\n\\n    // Return an object with the data extracted from the page.\\n    // It will be stored to the resulting dataset.\\n    return {\\n        url: context.request.url,\\n        pageTitle,\\n        h1,\\n        first_h2,\\n        random_text_from_the_page\\n    };\\n}",
26      "proxyConfiguration": {
27            "useApifyProxy": true
28      },
29      "initialCookies": [],
30      "waitUntil": [
31            "networkidle2"
32      ],
33      "preNavigationHooks": "// We need to return array of (possibly async) functions here.\\n// The functions accept two arguments: the \\"crawlingContext\\" object\\n// and \\"gotoOptions\\".\\n[\\n    async (crawlingContext, gotoOptions) => {\\n        // ...\\n    },\\n]\\n",
34      "postNavigationHooks": "// We need to return array of (possibly async) functions here.\\n// The functions accept a single argument: the \\"crawlingContext\\" object.\\n[\\n    async (crawlingContext) => {\\n        // ...\\n    },\\n]",
35      "breakpointLocation": "NONE",
36      "customData": {}
37},
38    "name": "apify/web-scraper"
39  }
40}'

The response should be: Accepted. You should received response via SSE (JSON) as:

1event: message
2data: {
3  "result": {
4    "content": [
5      {
6        "type": "text",
7        "text": "ACTOR_RESPONSE"
8      }
9    ]
10  }
11}

Configure local MCP Server via standard input/output for Web Scraper

You can connect to the MCP Server using clients like ClaudeDesktop and LibreChat or build your own. The server can run both locally and remotely, giving you full flexibility. Set up the server in the client configuration as follows:

1{
2  "mcpServers": {
3    "actors-mcp-server": {
4      "command": "npx",
5      "args": [
6        "-y",
7        "@apify/actors-mcp-server",
8        "--actors",
9        "apify/web-scraper"
10      ],
11      "env": {
12        "APIFY_TOKEN": "<YOUR_API_TOKEN>"
13      }
14    }
15  }
16}

You can further access the MCP client through the Tester MCP Client, a chat user interface to interact with the server.

To get started, check out the documentation and example clients. If you are interested in learning more about our MCP server, check out our blog post.

Pricing

Pricing model

Pay per usage

This Actor is paid per platform usage. The Actor is free to use, and you only pay for the Apify platform usage.