xMap Flows vs Apify

At a glance

What Apify is

Apify is a platform for web scraping and browser automation, with a store of ready-made scrapers (actors), including ones that collect business listings from online maps.

A scraper hands you raw rows. Covering a whole area without gaps, cleaning duplicates, remembering what was already found, ranking and delivering are left to you, as are the rules of each site you collect from.

Where xMap Flows is different

• Each flow is an AI employee with a job: a role, a timetable, a monthly budget, and a choice of how much it does alone (ask me first, act and tell me, or fully on its own). Together they work as a team: an org chart, handoffs from one to the next, a Team inbox where each reports, and a weekly review.
• xMap's own places database plus a managed live map scan: no scrapers to run or maintain.
• Whole areas covered in parts, results kept inside the area, duplicates merged.
• Only new and What changed across runs.
• AI ranking, delivery to your tools and a workspace for the team, in the same flow.

When Apify is the better choice

We would rather you use the right tool. Apify is likely the better fit when:

• You need data from specific websites that no data block covers.
• You want to build and run your own scrapers.

Use them together

Bring data from an Apify scraper into xMap Flows through a webhook or the HTTP block, and let the flow rank, de-duplicate and deliver it.

Moving to xMap Flows

1. Replace map-listing scrapers with Nearby places or Map business scan.
2. Keep scrapers for websites no block covers, and send their output to an xMap webhook.

Most teams start from a template or by describing the flow to Ask xMap.

Questions

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