SaaSHub Software Alternatives Scraper

Turn public SaaSHub alternatives pages into clean, ranked software-competitor datasets.

Track how SaaSHub positions competing products, refresh “alternatives to” content, populate recommendation systems, or compare software categories without copying pages by hand.

The Actor accepts SaaSHub product slugs and full alternatives-page URLs. It returns one row per ranked or verified alternative with names, URLs, descriptions, features, votes, badges, comparison links, and provenance.

What does SaaSHub Software Alternatives Scraper do?

• Extracts ranked alternatives from public SaaSHub pages.
• Preserves the rank shown for each seed product.
• Captures product descriptions and key-feature lists.
• Returns SaaSHub profile URLs and vendor website URLs.
• Captures logos, pricing/model tags, and vote values.
• Distinguishes ranked and verified placements.
• Flags featured or sponsored wording when it appears.
• Collects popular comparison URLs.
• Processes several seed products in one run.
• Exports JSON, CSV, Excel, XML, RSS, or HTML through Apify datasets.

Who is it for?

Competitive-intelligence teams

Monitor which alternatives are associated with your product and how those competitors are described.

SEO and content teams

Build evidence-based comparison briefs and refresh “best alternatives” pages from a structured source.

Affiliate and directory operators

Maintain software catalogs with consistent product links, logos, descriptions, and feature labels.

Product researchers

Compare positioning and category adjacency across many software products.

RAG and recommendation builders

Feed ranked software relationships into retrieval systems, knowledge graphs, and recommendation pipelines.

Why use this Actor?

Manual competitor research is slow and difficult to refresh.

This Actor produces repeatable records with source URLs and timestamps, making changes easier to audit.

It uses public server-rendered HTML and does not require a SaaSHub API key or user account.

Verified placements remain labeled, so paid or self-identified competitors are not silently mixed with organic rankings.

Data you can extract

Field	Meaning
seedProduct	Product whose alternatives page was requested
seedSlug	Normalized SaaSHub product slug
rank	Rank on the page, or null for verified sidebar entries
productName	Alternative product name
productUrl	SaaSHub alternatives/profile URL
websiteUrl	Vendor website when shown
logoUrl	Product logo URL
description	SaaSHub product positioning text
keyFeatures	Feature labels shown in the product card
tags	Pricing, licensing, or category labels
rating	Vote/rating number displayed in context
section	ranked or verified
isVerified	Whether the record came from a verified placement
isFeatured	Whether featured/sponsored wording was detected
comparisonUrls	Relevant SaaSHub comparison pages
sourceUrl	Alternatives page used
scrapedAt	UTC extraction timestamp

How to scrape SaaSHub software alternatives

1. Open the Actor input form.
2. Add one or more product slugs, such as slack or notion.
3. Optionally add complete URLs such as https://www.saashub.com/trello-alternatives.
4. Choose the maximum number of alternatives per seed.
5. Enable or disable verified entries and comparisons.
6. Start the run.
7. Open the Dataset tab to preview or export results.

Input

{
  "productSlugs": ["slack", "notion", "trello"],
  "maxAlternatives": 25,
  "includeVerified": true,
  "includeComparisons": true
}

productSlugs and productUrls may be combined.

If neither is supplied, the Actor uses slack as a safe sample.

Duplicate slugs are removed automatically.

The maximum is applied separately to each seed product.

Output example

{
  "seedProduct": "Notion",
  "seedSlug": "notion",
  "rank": 2,
  "productName": "Asana",
  "productUrl": "https://www.saashub.com/asana-alternatives",
  "websiteUrl": "https://asana.com/",
  "description": "Asana project management...",
  "keyFeatures": ["Task Management", "Collaboration"],
  "tags": ["freemium"],
  "rating": 195,
  "section": "ranked",
  "isVerified": false,
  "isFeatured": false,
  "sourceUrl": "https://www.saashub.com/notion-alternatives",
  "scrapedAt": "2026-07-13T02:58:16.860Z"
}

Optional fields use null or empty arrays rather than invented values.

How much does it cost to scrape SaaSHub alternatives?

The Actor uses pay-per-event pricing.

A small start fee covers run setup, followed by a charge for each dataset row produced.

Subscription tiers receive automatic volume discounts.

Before a large batch, run one representative seed and use the Console estimate to forecast the total.

You pay for results produced, not a monthly software license for this Actor.

Tips for reliable monitoring

• Store the sourceUrl with every downstream record.
• Use seedSlug and productUrl as stable join keys.
• Compare runs by rank rather than dataset order alone.
• Keep section in exports to separate verified placements.
• Schedule weekly or monthly runs for trend monitoring.
• Start with 25 alternatives before increasing volume.
• Treat SaaSHub descriptions as source text, not your own claims.

Integrations

Google Sheets

Send dataset rows to a sheet for editorial review and competitor tracking.

Slack and email

Use an Apify webhook to notify a channel when a scheduled run completes.

Zapier and Make

Trigger workflows that enrich newly discovered competitor domains.

Data warehouses

Load JSON or CSV exports into BigQuery, Snowflake, or PostgreSQL.

AI and RAG pipelines

Index product relationships, features, and source URLs for grounded recommendations.

API usage

Use the Apify client libraries or REST API to start runs and retrieve the default dataset. The following JavaScript, Python, and cURL examples all target automation-lab/saashub-software-alternatives-scraper.

JavaScript API example

import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

const client = new ApifyClient({ token: process.env.APIFY_TOKEN });
const run = await client.actor('automation-lab/saashub-software-alternatives-scraper').call({
  productSlugs: ['slack', 'notion'],
  maxAlternatives: 25,
});
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
console.log(items);

Python API example

from apify_client import ApifyClient

client = ApifyClient('YOUR_APIFY_TOKEN')
run = client.actor('automation-lab/saashub-software-alternatives-scraper').call(
    run_input={'productSlugs': ['slack'], 'maxAlternatives': 25}
)
items = client.dataset(run['defaultDatasetId']).list_items().items
print(items)

cURL API example

curl -X POST \
  "https://api.apify.com/v2/acts/automation-lab~saashub-software-alternatives-scraper/runs?token=$APIFY_TOKEN" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"productSlugs":["slack"],"maxAlternatives":25}'

Fetch results from the run's defaultDatasetId after it succeeds.

Use with Apify MCP

The Actor is available through this scoped MCP endpoint:

https://mcp.apify.com?tools=automation-lab/saashub-software-alternatives-scraper

Set APIFY_TOKEN in your environment, then add it to Claude Code:

claude mcp add --transport http apify-saashub \
  "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=automation-lab/saashub-software-alternatives-scraper" \
  --header "Authorization: Bearer $APIFY_TOKEN"

For Claude Desktop or Cursor, add this block to the client's MCP JSON configuration and replace <APIFY_TOKEN> with your token:

{
  "mcpServers": {
    "apify-saashub": {
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=automation-lab/saashub-software-alternatives-scraper",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer <APIFY_TOKEN>"
      }
    }
  }
}

For VS Code, save the following as .vscode/mcp.json:

{
  "servers": {
    "apify-saashub": {
      "type": "http",
      "url": "https://mcp.apify.com?tools=automation-lab/saashub-software-alternatives-scraper",
      "headers": {
        "Authorization": "Bearer ${input:apify-token}"
      }
    }
  },
  "inputs": [
    {
      "id": "apify-token",
      "type": "promptString",
      "description": "Apify API token",
      "password": true
    }
  ]
}

Restart the desktop client or VS Code after saving its configuration.

Example prompts:

• “Find the top alternatives to Slack on SaaSHub.”
• “Compare Notion and Trello alternative sets.”
• “Return verified placements separately from ranked products.”
• “Prepare a competitor brief from these SaaSHub records.”

Scheduling and change detection

Create an Apify schedule to run the Actor at a chosen interval.

Use the same seed list on each run.

Export results to a named database or compare datasets downstream.

Useful changes include new products, rank movement, description changes, and new verified placements.

A webhook can start a follow-up workflow after every successful refresh.

Error handling

Invalid or missing pages are logged and skipped when SaaSHub returns HTTP 404.

Unexpected response codes fail the run instead of returning misleading empty data.

If a valid page yields no cards, the Actor fails with a selector-drift message.

Transient network errors are retried with bounded retries.

Limitations

The Actor reads the public SaaSHub HTML surface, not the private keyed API.

Available fields vary by product card.

Vote values are source-provided context and may not represent conventional star ratings.

SaaSHub can change markup, rankings, badges, or descriptions at any time.

The Actor does not scrape user reviews or bypass login-only pages.

Legality

Is it legal to scrape SaaSHub?

This Actor extracts publicly accessible information.

Your use must comply with applicable laws, SaaSHub terms, intellectual-property rights, and data-protection obligations.

Avoid excessive request rates and do not republish source text without checking your rights to do so.

You are responsible for the purpose, retention, and distribution of collected data.

Troubleshooting

Why did a product return no rows?

Confirm the slug exists and that its public URL ends in -alternatives.

Why is rank null?

Verified sidebar products are not assigned an organic list position, so their rank is intentionally null.

Why are some feature arrays empty?

SaaSHub does not show feature labels for every product.

Why is a comparison list empty?

Disable neither comparisons nor use a page that does not expose popular comparisons.

How can I reduce run size?

Lower maxAlternatives or submit fewer seed products.

FAQ

Does this Actor need a SaaSHub API key?

No. It reads anonymously available public pages.

Can I submit full URLs?

Yes. Use productUrls, productSlugs, or both.

Can it process many products?

Yes. Submit several slugs in one run; begin with a small representative batch.

Are verified alternatives organic rankings?

No. They are labeled with section: verified, isVerified: true, and a null rank.

Can I export to Excel?

Yes. Apify datasets support Excel, CSV, JSON, XML, RSS, and HTML exports.

Related scrapers

Combine this Actor with other Automation Lab software-intelligence tools:

• G2 Scraper for software directory and review intelligence.
• Chrome Web Store Extension Scraper for browser-extension profiles.
• Shopify App Store Reviews Scraper for ecommerce app feedback.

Use each source according to its own terms and data scope.

Support

If a valid public SaaSHub alternatives page stops producing records, open an Actor issue with:

• the input used,
• the run URL,
• the expected product,
• and a short description of the missing data.

Those details make selector changes faster to diagnose.