Actor Deprecation Monitor

Monitor the Apify actors your pipelines depend on for early warning signs of deprecation or abandonment. Catches problems before they break your production workflows overnight.

Features

• Checks 7 deprecation signals per actor: stale builds, version staleness, success rate decline, maintenance flags, pricing changes, developer inactivity, and explicit deprecation markers
• Scores each actor 0-100 on a composite deprecation risk scale
• Categorizes actors as HEALTHY, WATCH, WARNING, or CRITICAL
• Suggests alternative actors from the Apify Store when risk is elevated
• Sends webhook alerts (Slack, Discord, Teams, Zapier) when any actor crosses your threshold
• Pay-per-event pricing: $0.05 per actor monitored

Use Cases

• DevOps teams: Run daily on a schedule to catch actor deprecation before pipelines break
• Data engineers: Monitor third-party actors your ETL pipelines depend on
• Apify power users: Track the health of 10-50 actors across multiple projects
• Agency teams: Watch client pipeline dependencies and proactively migrate before failures

How to Use

1. Click Try for free on this page
2. Paste your Apify API token (needed to query actor metadata)
3. Add the actor IDs or username/name slugs you want to monitor (e.g., apify/web-scraper)
4. Set your alert threshold (default 60 catches WARNING and CRITICAL actors)
5. Optionally add a webhook URL for Slack/Discord/Teams notifications
6. Click Start and review the risk report in the Dataset tab

For automated monitoring, schedule this actor to run daily or weekly via the Apify Scheduler.

Input Parameters

Parameter	Type	Required	Description
apiToken	string	Yes	Your Apify API token from https://console.apify.com/account/integrations
actorIds	string[]	Yes	Actor IDs or username/actor-name slugs to monitor (e.g., apify/web-scraper)
alertThreshold	integer	No	Risk score threshold for webhook alerts (0-100, default 60)
webhookUrl	string	No	URL to POST alerts to when actors exceed threshold

Deprecation Signals Checked

Signal	Max Weight	Description
Explicit deprecation flag	40	Actor is marked deprecated by the developer
Under maintenance	30	Actor is flagged as under maintenance
Success rate critically low	30	Recent success rate below 50%
Stale build (6+ months)	25	No new builds in over 180 days
Success rate declining sharply	25	Success rate dropped 20%+ between periods
No builds found	20	Actor has no build history at all
Version staleness (6+ months)	20	No version updates in over 180 days
Stale build (3+ months)	18	No new builds in over 90 days
Success rate declining	15	Success rate trending downward
High PPE pricing	15	Unusually high per-event pricing ("sunset pricing")
Developer inactive	15	Developer has no recently updated actors
Stale build (30+ days)	10	No new builds in over 30 days
Version staleness (60+ days)	10	No version updates in over 60 days
No public Store actors	10	Developer has no public actors on Store
No recent runs	10	No runs in 30+ days

Risk Levels

Level	Score Range	What It Means
HEALTHY	0-24	No significant deprecation signals. Actor appears actively maintained.
WATCH	25-49	Minor signals detected. Check again in 2-4 weeks.
WARNING	50-74	Multiple deprecation signals. Start evaluating alternatives.
CRITICAL	75-100	Strong deprecation signals. Migrate to an alternative ASAP.

Output Example

Each monitored actor produces a result like this:

{
  "actorName": "some-scraper",
  "actorId": "abc123def456",
  "developer": "somedev",
  "riskScore": 75,
  "riskLevel": "WARNING",
  "signals": [
    { "signal": "Last build 145 days ago (3+ months stale)", "weight": 18 },
    { "signal": "Success rate dropped from 95% to 72%", "weight": 25 },
    { "signal": "Under maintenance", "weight": 30 }
  ],
  "recommendation": "Success rate is declining, which often precedes full deprecation. Start evaluating alternatives and prepare a migration plan.",
  "alternatives": ["ryanclinton/similar-actor", "otherdev/another-scraper"],
  "checkedAt": "2026-03-18T12:00:00.000Z"
}

A summary row is also included:

{
  "type": "summary",
  "totalMonitored": 5,
  "healthy": 2,
  "watch": 1,
  "warning": 1,
  "critical": 1,
  "highestRisk": "some-scraper",
  "highestRiskScore": 75,
  "alertSent": true,
  "checkedAt": "2026-03-18T12:00:05.000Z"
}

You can download results as JSON, CSV, Excel, or HTML.

How Much Does It Cost?

This actor uses pay-per-event pricing at $0.05 per actor monitored.

Actors Monitored	Cost
5 actors	$0.25
20 actors	$1.00
50 actors	$2.50

The Apify Free plan includes $5 of monthly credits — enough to monitor 100 actors per month.

Webhook Alert Format

When any actor exceeds your alert threshold, the webhook receives a POST with this payload:

{
  "source": "actor-deprecation-monitor",
  "timestamp": "2026-03-18T12:00:05.000Z",
  "totalMonitored": 10,
  "actorsOverThreshold": 2,
  "alertThreshold": 60,
  "actors": [
    {
      "actorName": "some-scraper",
      "riskScore": 75,
      "riskLevel": "WARNING",
      "topSignal": "Under maintenance",
      "recommendation": "...",
      "alternatives": ["ryanclinton/similar-actor"]
    }
  ]
}

Tips

• Schedule daily runs to catch problems early — most actors show warning signs days before they fully break
• Start with a threshold of 60 (WARNING level) for alerts, lower to 25 if you want to catch WATCH-level signals too
• Combine with Actor Health Monitor which monitors YOUR actors' runtime failures, while this monitors OTHERS' actors for deprecation risk
• For critical pipelines, monitor the same actors from multiple angles: this actor checks deprecation risk, while website-change-monitor can watch the actor's Store page for changes

FAQ

Q: What's the difference between this and Actor Health Monitor? A: Actor Health Monitor watches your own actors for runtime failures. This actor watches OTHER people's actors that you depend on for signs they're being abandoned or deprecated.

Q: How often should I run this? A: Daily for critical pipeline dependencies. Weekly is fine for lower-priority actors. Schedule it via the Apify Scheduler.

Q: Can I monitor actors I don't own? A: Yes. You can monitor any public actor on the Apify Store by passing its ID or username/name slug.

Q: What if an actor I depend on goes CRITICAL? A: Check the alternatives suggested in the output. Test them against your pipeline inputs. The sooner you migrate, the less downtime you'll experience.

Q: Does this work with private actors? A: Only if your API token has access to them. For public Store actors, any valid API token works.

Q: Is it legal to monitor other developers' actors? A: Yes. This actor only reads publicly available metadata (build dates, run statistics, pricing) through the official Apify API. No private data is accessed.

Integrations

Use this actor with:

• Zapier for automated workflows
• Make for complex automations
• Google Sheets for spreadsheet tracking
• The Apify API for programmatic access

Related Actors

• ryanclinton/actor-health-monitor — Monitor your own actors for runtime failures and trends
• ryanclinton/actor-quality-audit — Audit actor code quality and Store listing completeness
• ryanclinton/cost-watchdog — Track Apify spending and get alerts on cost spikes