# Site to Markdown — any site to clean, LLM-ready markdown (`topsail/site-to-markdown`) Actor

Scrape any website to clean, LLM-ready markdown — a compliant Firecrawl alternative for RAG ingestion, robots.txt always on.

- **URL**: https://apify.com/topsail/site-to-markdown.md
- **Developed by:** [Connor Teskey](https://apify.com/topsail) (community)
- **Categories:** AI, Developer tools, Automation
- **Stats:** 2 total users, 1 monthly users, 100.0% runs succeeded, NaN bookmarks
- **User rating**: No ratings yet

## Pricing

from $1.50 / 1,000 pages

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/platform/actors/running/actors-in-store#pay-per-event

## What's an Apify Actor?

Actors are a software tools running on the Apify platform, for all kinds of web data extraction and automation use cases.
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.
Actors are written with capital "A".

## 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.
The best way to integrate Actors is as follows.

In JavaScript/TypeScript projects, use official [JavaScript/TypeScript client](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/js.md):

```bash
npm install apify-client
```

In Python projects, use official [Python client library](https://docs.apify.com/api/client/python.md):

```bash
pip install apify-client
```

In shell scripts, use [Apify CLI](https://docs.apify.com/cli/docs.md):

````bash
# MacOS / Linux
curl -fsSL https://apify.com/install-cli.sh | bash
# Windows
irm https://apify.com/install-cli.ps1 | iex
```bash

In AI frameworks, you might use the [Apify MCP server](https://docs.apify.com/platform/integrations/mcp.md).

If your project is in a different language, use the [REST API](https://docs.apify.com/api/v2.md).

For usage examples, see the [API](#api) section below.

For more details, see Apify documentation as [Markdown index](https://docs.apify.com/llms.txt) and [Markdown full-text](https://docs.apify.com/llms-full.txt).


# README

## Site to Markdown

**Turn any website into clean, LLM-ready markdown — one document per page, with robots.txt compliance locked on.**

Built for AI agents, RAG builders, and documentation pipelines that need a website-to-markdown step without running crawler infrastructure. Point it at a URL: it crawls breadth-first, strips navigation, ads, and boilerplate, and keeps only the main content as tidy markdown. If you have been looking for a Firecrawl alternative on Apify for scrape-to-markdown jobs, this is that actor.

### What you get

One dataset item per page:

| Field | Meaning |
| --- | --- |
| `url` | The URL that was requested. |
| `finalUrl` | URL after redirects. |
| `status` | HTTP status code (0 when the fetch itself failed). |
| `title` | Page title, when found. |
| `markdown` | Clean, LLM-ready markdown of the page's main content. |
| `text` | Plain-text version (only when `outputFormat` is `markdown+text`). |
| `linksCount` | Number of links discovered on the page. |
| `fetchedAt` | ISO-8601 fetch timestamp. |
| `rendered` | Whether a headless browser rendered the page (always `false` in v1). |
| `error` | Error message when the page failed, otherwise `null`. |

Every run also writes a `RUN_SUMMARY` record to the key-value store with page counts and a failure breakdown.

### Quick start

```json
{
    "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://docs.python.org/3/" }],
    "crawlMode": "site-crawl",
    "maxPages": 10,
    "maxDepth": 1
}
````

A run like this returns one markdown document per crawled page and typically finishes in well under a minute; the verification crawl of docs.python.org converted 5 of 5 pages.

### Output example

```json
{
    "url": "https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/index.html",
    "finalUrl": "https://docs.python.org/3/tutorial/index.html",
    "status": 200,
    "title": "The Python Tutorial — Python 3.14.6 documentation",
    "markdown": "## The Python Tutorial\n\nPython is an easy to learn, powerful programming language. It has efficient high-level data st...",
    "linksCount": 35,
    "fetchedAt": "2026-06-11T00:49:18+00:00",
    "rendered": false,
    "error": null
}
```

### Why this one

- **Robots-locked by design.** Compliance is hard-coded into the crawler call, not an input default someone can flip. That makes the output safe to build a product on.
- **Selector-free extraction.** Main content is found by trafilatura with an automatic readability-style fallback — no CSS selectors to maintain when a site redesigns.
- **Honest zero-yield.** If no pages produce markdown, the run fails with a classified failure breakdown instead of finishing green on an empty dataset.
- **Precise scope control.** Include/exclude glob patterns match against the full URL, exclude wins, and same-domain crawling is the default.
- **Open foundation.** Built on [trawl](https://github.com/connorteskey/trawl) (MIT), a clean-room crawler, with [trafilatura](https://trafilatura.readthedocs.io/) as the quality extraction engine — the exact wheel is vendored into the image.

### Compliance and reliability

Topsail actors are built compliance-first and ship with self-healing plumbing:

- **robots.txt is always respected — locked on.** Every fetch goes through the crawler with robots compliance hard-coded; there is no input to turn it off. Pages disallowed by robots.txt are reported as `robots-blocked`, never fetched, and robots `Crawl-delay` is honored when larger than your politeness delay.
- **This actor reads only the public, static HTML pages you point it at** — the same documents any browser receives without logging in — and only where robots.txt permits.
- **Transient failures retry with backoff** (408, 425, 429, and 5xx responses, honoring `Retry-After`); persistent failures are reported, not hidden.
- **Every run writes a HEALTH summary** (`RUN_SUMMARY`) to the key-value store with page counts, a failure breakdown — `robots-blocked`, `http-4xx`, `http-5xx`, `timeout`, `extract-fail` — and a per-URL `failedPages` list, so you can see exactly which pages delivered and which were blocked, empty, or erroring. Only successful pages become dataset results.
- **No PII, no paywalled or login-gated content, no circumvention.**

### Pricing

Pay per result: $1.50 per 1,000 pages successfully extracted ($0.0015 per page), plus a fraction-of-a-cent actor start fee. Every dataset result is one extracted page — robots-blocked pages, failed fetches, and pages dropped by your URL filters never become results, so they cost nothing. The 10-page quick start above costs about two cents.

### Honest limits

- **No JavaScript rendering.** Static HTML only — SPAs that render entirely client-side will come back thin. Headless rendering is on the roadmap for v2.
- No sitemap.xml seeding yet; discovery is link-following from your start URLs.
- One markdown document per page; no site-level concatenated export (easy to build downstream from the dataset).
- robots.txt compliance cannot be disabled. If your use case requires ignoring robots.txt, this actor is not for you — by design.

### FAQ

**Is this a Firecrawl alternative?**
For the core scrape and crawl endpoints, yes: website to markdown, one clean document per page, ready for RAG ingestion — as an Apify actor instead of separate infrastructure. It does not replicate Firecrawl's JS rendering or search features in v1.

**Can it scrape JavaScript-heavy sites?**
Not in v1. It fetches static HTML, so server-rendered sites, documentation, and blogs work well; client-side SPAs come back thin.

**How do I scrape a single page to markdown?**
Set `crawlMode` to `single-page` and list your URLs in `startUrls`; each one is converted on its own with no link following.

**How do I keep a crawl focused on one section of a site?**
Use full-URL glob patterns: include `https://docs.example.com/en/*` and exclude `*/changelog/*`, for example. Exclude always wins.

**Can I turn off robots.txt compliance?**
No. It is hard-coded on, with no input to disable it. Disallowed pages are reported as `robots-blocked` so you can see what was skipped.

### More compliant data feeds from Topsail

- [GTA 6 Countdown & Developments Tracker](https://apify.com/topsail/gta6-tracker) — countdown, confirmed facts, diffed developments, market odds
- [Commodity Intel](https://apify.com/topsail/compliant-commodity-intel) — oil, gold, uranium headlines from permitted sources
- [Crypto News](https://apify.com/topsail/compliant-crypto-news) — BTC/ETH/DeFi headlines from major outlets
- [AI Research Radar](https://apify.com/topsail/compliant-ai-research-radar) — new papers and lab announcements

# Actor input Schema

## `startUrls` (type: `array`):

One or more URLs to convert. In single-page mode each URL is scraped on its own; in site-crawl mode each URL seeds a breadth-first crawl of the site.

## `crawlMode` (type: `string`):

Single-page scrapes only the start URLs; site-crawl follows links breadth-first up to Max pages and Max depth.

## `maxPages` (type: `integer`):

Stop crawling after this many pages per start URL (site-crawl mode). The prefill of 10 keeps the demo run around $0.02.

## `maxDepth` (type: `integer`):

How many link hops to follow from the start URL (site-crawl mode). Depth 1 means the start page plus the pages it links to.

## `includePatterns` (type: `array`):

Keep only pages whose full URL matches at least one glob, e.g. https://docs.example.com/en/\*. Leave empty to keep everything.

## `excludePatterns` (type: `array`):

Drop pages whose full URL matches any of these globs, e.g. */changelog/*. Exclude wins over include.

## `sameDomainOnly` (type: `boolean`):

Only follow links on the start URL's domain (site-crawl mode). Turn off to let the crawl cross to other domains, still capped by Max pages and Max depth.

## `engine` (type: `string`):

Auto tries trafilatura (highest quality) and falls back to the built-in readability-style extractor; the other options force one engine.

## `outputFormat` (type: `string`):

Markdown emits one markdown field per page; markdown+text adds a plain-text field too.

## `delayMillis` (type: `integer`):

Minimum delay between requests to the same host, in milliseconds. robots.txt Crawl-delay is honored on top of this when larger.

## Actor input object example

```json
{
  "startUrls": [
    {
      "url": "https://docs.python.org/3/"
    }
  ],
  "crawlMode": "site-crawl",
  "maxPages": 10,
  "maxDepth": 1,
  "includePatterns": [],
  "excludePatterns": [],
  "sameDomainOnly": true,
  "engine": "auto",
  "outputFormat": "markdown",
  "delayMillis": 500
}
```

# 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 = {
    "startUrls": [
        {
            "url": "https://docs.python.org/3/"
        }
    ],
    "crawlMode": "site-crawl",
    "maxPages": 10,
    "maxDepth": 1
};

// Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
const run = await client.actor("topsail/site-to-markdown").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 = {
    "startUrls": [{ "url": "https://docs.python.org/3/" }],
    "crawlMode": "site-crawl",
    "maxPages": 10,
    "maxDepth": 1,
}

# Run the Actor and wait for it to finish
run = client.actor("topsail/site-to-markdown").call(run_input=run_input)

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

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

```

## CLI example

```bash
echo '{
  "startUrls": [
    {
      "url": "https://docs.python.org/3/"
    }
  ],
  "crawlMode": "site-crawl",
  "maxPages": 10,
  "maxDepth": 1
}' |
apify call topsail/site-to-markdown --silent --output-dataset

```

## MCP server setup

```json
{
    "mcpServers": {
        "apify": {
            "command": "npx",
            "args": [
                "mcp-remote",
                "https://mcp.apify.com/?tools=topsail/site-to-markdown",
                "--header",
                "Authorization: Bearer <YOUR_API_TOKEN>"
            ]
        }
    }
}

```

## OpenAPI specification

```json
{
    "openapi": "3.0.1",
    "info": {
        "title": "Site to Markdown — any site to clean, LLM-ready markdown",
        "description": "Scrape any website to clean, LLM-ready markdown — a compliant Firecrawl alternative for RAG ingestion, robots.txt always on.",
        "version": "0.1",
        "x-build-id": "KLtUQS5DnskKSkfa9"
    },
    "servers": [
        {
            "url": "https://api.apify.com/v2"
        }
    ],
    "paths": {
        "/acts/topsail~site-to-markdown/run-sync-get-dataset-items": {
            "post": {
                "operationId": "run-sync-get-dataset-items-topsail-site-to-markdown",
                "x-openai-isConsequential": false,
                "summary": "Executes an Actor, waits for its completion, and returns Actor's dataset items in response.",
                "tags": [
                    "Run Actor"
                ],
                "requestBody": {
                    "required": true,
                    "content": {
                        "application/json": {
                            "schema": {
                                "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                "parameters": [
                    {
                        "name": "token",
                        "in": "query",
                        "required": true,
                        "schema": {
                            "type": "string"
                        },
                        "description": "Enter your Apify token here"
                    }
                ],
                "responses": {
                    "200": {
                        "description": "OK"
                    }
                }
            }
        },
        "/acts/topsail~site-to-markdown/runs": {
            "post": {
                "operationId": "runs-sync-topsail-site-to-markdown",
                "x-openai-isConsequential": false,
                "summary": "Executes an Actor and returns information about the initiated run in response.",
                "tags": [
                    "Run Actor"
                ],
                "requestBody": {
                    "required": true,
                    "content": {
                        "application/json": {
                            "schema": {
                                "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                "parameters": [
                    {
                        "name": "token",
                        "in": "query",
                        "required": true,
                        "schema": {
                            "type": "string"
                        },
                        "description": "Enter your Apify token here"
                    }
                ],
                "responses": {
                    "200": {
                        "description": "OK",
                        "content": {
                            "application/json": {
                                "schema": {
                                    "$ref": "#/components/schemas/runsResponseSchema"
                                }
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        },
        "/acts/topsail~site-to-markdown/run-sync": {
            "post": {
                "operationId": "run-sync-topsail-site-to-markdown",
                "x-openai-isConsequential": false,
                "summary": "Executes an Actor, waits for completion, and returns the OUTPUT from Key-value store in response.",
                "tags": [
                    "Run Actor"
                ],
                "requestBody": {
                    "required": true,
                    "content": {
                        "application/json": {
                            "schema": {
                                "$ref": "#/components/schemas/inputSchema"
                            }
                        }
                    }
                },
                "parameters": [
                    {
                        "name": "token",
                        "in": "query",
                        "required": true,
                        "schema": {
                            "type": "string"
                        },
                        "description": "Enter your Apify token here"
                    }
                ],
                "responses": {
                    "200": {
                        "description": "OK"
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    },
    "components": {
        "schemas": {
            "inputSchema": {
                "type": "object",
                "required": [
                    "startUrls"
                ],
                "properties": {
                    "startUrls": {
                        "title": "Start URLs",
                        "type": "array",
                        "description": "One or more URLs to convert. In single-page mode each URL is scraped on its own; in site-crawl mode each URL seeds a breadth-first crawl of the site.",
                        "items": {
                            "type": "object",
                            "required": [
                                "url"
                            ],
                            "properties": {
                                "url": {
                                    "type": "string",
                                    "title": "URL of a web page",
                                    "format": "uri"
                                }
                            }
                        }
                    },
                    "crawlMode": {
                        "title": "Crawl mode",
                        "enum": [
                            "single-page",
                            "site-crawl"
                        ],
                        "type": "string",
                        "description": "Single-page scrapes only the start URLs; site-crawl follows links breadth-first up to Max pages and Max depth.",
                        "default": "site-crawl"
                    },
                    "maxPages": {
                        "title": "Max pages",
                        "minimum": 1,
                        "maximum": 5000,
                        "type": "integer",
                        "description": "Stop crawling after this many pages per start URL (site-crawl mode). The prefill of 10 keeps the demo run around $0.02.",
                        "default": 50
                    },
                    "maxDepth": {
                        "title": "Max depth",
                        "minimum": 0,
                        "maximum": 20,
                        "type": "integer",
                        "description": "How many link hops to follow from the start URL (site-crawl mode). Depth 1 means the start page plus the pages it links to.",
                        "default": 2
                    },
                    "includePatterns": {
                        "title": "Include URL patterns (glob)",
                        "type": "array",
                        "description": "Keep only pages whose full URL matches at least one glob, e.g. https://docs.example.com/en/*. Leave empty to keep everything.",
                        "items": {
                            "type": "string"
                        },
                        "default": []
                    },
                    "excludePatterns": {
                        "title": "Exclude URL patterns (glob)",
                        "type": "array",
                        "description": "Drop pages whose full URL matches any of these globs, e.g. */changelog/*. Exclude wins over include.",
                        "items": {
                            "type": "string"
                        },
                        "default": []
                    },
                    "sameDomainOnly": {
                        "title": "Stay on the same domain",
                        "type": "boolean",
                        "description": "Only follow links on the start URL's domain (site-crawl mode). Turn off to let the crawl cross to other domains, still capped by Max pages and Max depth.",
                        "default": true
                    },
                    "engine": {
                        "title": "Extraction engine",
                        "enum": [
                            "auto",
                            "trafilatura",
                            "builtin"
                        ],
                        "type": "string",
                        "description": "Auto tries trafilatura (highest quality) and falls back to the built-in readability-style extractor; the other options force one engine.",
                        "default": "auto"
                    },
                    "outputFormat": {
                        "title": "Output format",
                        "enum": [
                            "markdown",
                            "markdown+text"
                        ],
                        "type": "string",
                        "description": "Markdown emits one markdown field per page; markdown+text adds a plain-text field too.",
                        "default": "markdown"
                    },
                    "delayMillis": {
                        "title": "Politeness delay (ms)",
                        "minimum": 100,
                        "type": "integer",
                        "description": "Minimum delay between requests to the same host, in milliseconds. robots.txt Crawl-delay is honored on top of this when larger.",
                        "default": 500
                    }
                }
            },
            "runsResponseSchema": {
                "type": "object",
                "properties": {
                    "data": {
                        "type": "object",
                        "properties": {
                            "id": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "actId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "userId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "startedAt": {
                                "type": "string",
                                "format": "date-time",
                                "example": "2025-01-08T00:00:00.000Z"
                            },
                            "finishedAt": {
                                "type": "string",
                                "format": "date-time",
                                "example": "2025-01-08T00:00:00.000Z"
                            },
                            "status": {
                                "type": "string",
                                "example": "READY"
                            },
                            "meta": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "origin": {
                                        "type": "string",
                                        "example": "API"
                                    },
                                    "userAgent": {
                                        "type": "string"
                                    }
                                }
                            },
                            "stats": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "inputBodyLen": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 2000
                                    },
                                    "rebootCount": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "restartCount": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "resurrectCount": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "computeUnits": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    }
                                }
                            },
                            "options": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "build": {
                                        "type": "string",
                                        "example": "latest"
                                    },
                                    "timeoutSecs": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 300
                                    },
                                    "memoryMbytes": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 1024
                                    },
                                    "diskMbytes": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 2048
                                    }
                                }
                            },
                            "buildId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "defaultKeyValueStoreId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "defaultDatasetId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "defaultRequestQueueId": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "buildNumber": {
                                "type": "string",
                                "example": "1.0.0"
                            },
                            "containerUrl": {
                                "type": "string"
                            },
                            "usage": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "ACTOR_COMPUTE_UNITS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATASET_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATASET_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 1
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_LISTS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "REQUEST_QUEUE_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "REQUEST_QUEUE_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATA_TRANSFER_INTERNAL_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATA_TRANSFER_EXTERNAL_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "PROXY_RESIDENTIAL_TRANSFER_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "PROXY_SERPS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    }
                                }
                            },
                            "usageTotalUsd": {
                                "type": "number",
                                "example": 0.00005
                            },
                            "usageUsd": {
                                "type": "object",
                                "properties": {
                                    "ACTOR_COMPUTE_UNITS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATASET_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATASET_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "number",
                                        "example": 0.00005
                                    },
                                    "KEY_VALUE_STORE_LISTS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "REQUEST_QUEUE_READS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "REQUEST_QUEUE_WRITES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATA_TRANSFER_INTERNAL_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "DATA_TRANSFER_EXTERNAL_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "PROXY_RESIDENTIAL_TRANSFER_GBYTES": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    },
                                    "PROXY_SERPS": {
                                        "type": "integer",
                                        "example": 0
                                    }
                                }
                            }
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}
```