# Website Change Monitor: Diff Any Page (`tindacloud/website-change-monitor`) Actor

Website change detection for any page: get the exact lines added and removed since the last run. Filter by CSS selector, keywords or minimum change size.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/tindacloud/website-change-monitor.md
- **Developed by:** [Seungki Min](https://apify.com/tindacloud) (community)
- **Categories:** Automation, Developer tools, SEO tools
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 0.0% runs succeeded, 0 bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $3.00 / 1,000 changes

This Actor is paid per event. You are not charged for the Apify platform usage, but only a fixed price for specific events.

Learn more: https://docs.apify.com/actors/running/actors-in-store.md#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

An Actor is a serverless cloud program that runs on the Apify platform. It has two run modes.
In Batch mode, an Actor accepts a well-defined JSON input, performs an action which can take anything from a few seconds to a few hours,
and optionally produces a well-defined JSON output, datasets with results, or files in key-value store.
In Standby mode, an Actor provides a web server which can be used as a website, API, or an MCP server.

Apify vocabulary and the platform model are defined once, in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md.

## How to integrate an Actor?

If asked about integration, you help developers integrate Actors into their projects.
You adapt to their stack and deliver integrations that are safe, well-documented, and production-ready.

Do not guess an integration path. Every one of them is in the agent quickstart at https://apify.com/agents.md: the Apify MCP server, Agent Skills with the Apify CLI, the JavaScript and Python clients, the REST API, and the account-free path for an agent with no human to sign in. It also carries the rule on stating cost before the first paid run.

For examples already wired to this Actor's own input schema, see the [API](#api) section below.

Each client library has reference documentation the quickstart does not restate: [JavaScript/TypeScript](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs.md) (`npm install apify-client`) and [Python](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs.md) (`pip install apify-client`).

# README

## Website Change Monitor: Diff Any Page

**Website change detection** for any page: find out exactly what changed — the lines that were added and the lines that were removed, not just "something moved".

A competitor's pricing page. A supplier's terms. A careers page. A status page. A government notice. Anything with a URL.

### How this website changes monitor works

The first run records a baseline and returns nothing — **you are not charged for it**. Every run after that compares the page and returns a row only when it actually changed.

Noise is filtered out for you: clock times, ISO timestamps and CSRF tokens are ignored automatically, and you can add your own patterns for visit counters or rotating banners.

### How to monitor a website for changes

| Field | What it does |
|---|---|
| `urls` | Pages to watch |
| `selector` | Watch only part of the page, e.g. `.pricing-table` |
| `ignorePatterns` | Regular expressions for text that always changes |
| `alertKeywords` | Only report when a word like "price" or "discontinued" appears in the change |
| `minChangedCharacters` | Ignore tiny edits |
| `reportFirstRun` | Return the baseline too, if you want it |

### What the page change output looks like

One row per changed page:

```json
{
  "url": "https://httpbin.org/uuid",
  "changeType": "baseline",
  "title": null,
  "contentLength": 51,
  "checkedAt": "2026-09-21T11:07:20.774Z"
}
```

A page that starts returning 404 or 410 is reported as `changeType: "unavailable"` — a removed product or a pulled job posting is a change worth knowing about.

### How fast is it and what does it cost?

3 pages take about **3 seconds**. Unchanged pages produce no rows, so a daily watch on 50 pages costs almost nothing until something happens.

### Ready-made examples

Open one, change the fields, press Start — nothing to configure:

- [Monitor a competitor pricing page for changes](https://apify.com/tindacloud/website-change-monitor/examples/monitor-a-competitor-pricing-page-for-changes)
- [Website change detection for any page](https://apify.com/tindacloud/website-change-monitor/examples/website-change-detection-for-any-page)

### Frequently asked questions

#### Do I need an API key or a login?

No. Paste your input, press Start. There is nothing to connect and no account on the target site to create.

#### How do I export the results?

Every run produces a dataset you can download as JSON, CSV, Excel, XML or HTML, or read through the Apify API from your own code. You can also connect it to Make, Zapier or n8n.

#### Can I run this on a schedule?

Yes. Apify schedules run it every hour, day or week without you being there. That is the whole point of this Actor: a scheduled run returns only the pages that changed.

#### Can I call it from Python or JavaScript?

Yes — the Apify API runs any Actor and returns the dataset, and the official Python and JavaScript clients wrap it in a few lines. AI agents can call it too, through Apify's MCP server.

#### What does it cost?

You pay per result, not per hour. Filters are applied before anything is charged, so narrowing the input directly lowers the bill. Pages that cannot be read are reported in the log and never charged.

#### Is this data public?

Everything collected here is what any web page shows to anyone without logging in. Check the target site's terms and the rules that apply to you before using the data commercially.

### Related scrapers

- [Price & Stock Monitor for Any Shop](https://apify.com/tindacloud/price-stock-monitor) — prices specifically
- [Structured Data Extractor](https://apify.com/tindacloud/structured-data-extractor) — what a page declares about itself
- [Website to Markdown for AI & RAG](https://apify.com/tindacloud/website-to-markdown) — the full text, cleaned up

# Actor input Schema

## `urls` (type: `array`):

Any pages: a competitor's pricing page, a careers page, terms of service, a status page, a product listing.

## `selector` (type: `string`):

Optional. For example “.pricing-table” or “main”. Without it the whole page body is compared.

## `ignorePatterns` (type: `array`):

Regular expressions for text that changes every visit — visit counters, session IDs, “last updated” lines. Clock times and ISO timestamps are ignored automatically.

## `alertKeywords` (type: `array`):

Report a change only when one of these words shows up in what was added or removed, e.g. “price”, “discontinued”, “hiring”.

## `minChangedCharacters` (type: `integer`):

Ignore changes smaller than this many characters.

## `includeFullText` (type: `boolean`):

Adds the current text of the page to the result, not just the changed lines.

## `reportFirstRun` (type: `boolean`):

By default the first run only records a baseline and returns nothing, so you are not charged for it.

## `maxResults` (type: `integer`):

Total limit.

## `proxy` (type: `object`):

Apify Proxy is used as a fallback when a site blocks a direct request.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "urls": [
    "https://apify.com/pricing",
    "https://openai.com/pricing"
  ],
  "minChangedCharacters": 0,
  "includeFullText": false,
  "reportFirstRun": false,
  "maxResults": 1000,
  "proxy": {
    "useApifyProxy": true
  }
}
```

# Actor output Schema

## `results` (type: `string`):

All results in a table view.

# API

You can run this Actor programmatically using our API. Below are code examples in JavaScript, Python, and CLI, as well as the OpenAPI specification and MCP server setup.

## JavaScript example

```javascript
import { ApifyClient } from 'apify-client';

// Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
// Replace the '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token
const client = new ApifyClient({
    token: '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>',
});

// Prepare Actor input
const input = {
    "urls": [
        "https://apify.com/pricing",
        "https://openai.com/pricing"
    ]
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("tindacloud/website-change-monitor").call(input);

// Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if any)
console.log('Results from dataset');
console.log(`💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/${run.defaultDatasetId}`);
const { items } = await client.dataset(run.defaultDatasetId).listItems();
items.forEach((item) => {
    console.dir(item);
});

// 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js/docs

```

## Python example

```python
from apify_client import ApifyClient

# Initialize the ApifyClient with your Apify API token
# Replace '<YOUR_API_TOKEN>' with your token.
client = ApifyClient("<YOUR_API_TOKEN>")

# Prepare the Actor input
run_input = { "urls": [
        "https://apify.com/pricing",
        "https://openai.com/pricing",
    ] }

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("tindacloud/website-change-monitor").call(run_input=run_input)

# Fetch and print Actor results from the run's dataset (if there are any)
print(f"💾 Check your data here: https://console.apify.com/storage/datasets/{run.default_dataset_id}")
for item in client.dataset(run.default_dataset_id).iterate_items():
    print(item)

# 📚 Want to learn more 📖? Go to → https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python/docs/quick-start

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "urls": [
    "https://apify.com/pricing",
    "https://openai.com/pricing"
  ]
}' |
apify call tindacloud/website-change-monitor --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "type": "http",
            "url": "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=fetch-actor-details,tindacloud/website-change-monitor"
        }
    }
}
```

The hosted server signs you in with OAuth on first connect, so no API token belongs in this config. Clients without OAuth support can send an `Authorization: Bearer <APIFY_API_TOKEN>` header instead, using a token from API & Integrations in Apify Console (https://console.apify.com/settings/integrations).

## OpenAPI specification

Download the OpenAPI definition: https://api.apify.com/v2/actors/xqGhEqC7YRUuT3sr2/builds/9MgI5VtsJGEy9VHYp/openapi.json