Apify SDK

June 19, 2026 · View on GitHub

apify is the official SDK for building Apify Actors in JavaScript and TypeScript. It handles the Actor lifecycle, storage access, platform events, proxy configuration, and more.

Quick Start

This short tutorial will set you up to start using Apify SDK in a minute or two. If you want to learn more, proceed to the Apify Platform guide that will take you step by step through running your Actor on Apify's platform.

Apify SDK requires Node.js 16 or later. Add Apify SDK to any Node.js project by running:

npm install apify

To initialize your Actor and to stop it use the Actor.init() and Actor.exit() functions. You also may use Actor.main() function for cases with multiple crawlers in one context.

import { Actor } from 'apify';

await Actor.init();

const input = (await Actor.getInput()) ?? {};
await Actor.setValue('OUTPUT', {
    message: 'Hello from Apify SDK!',
    input,
});

await Actor.exit();

You can also install the crawlee module, as it now provides the crawlers that were previously exported by Apify SDK. If you don't plan to use crawlers in your Actors, then you don't need to install it. Keep in mind that neither playwright nor puppeteer are bundled with crawlee in order to reduce install size and allow greater flexibility. That's why we manually install it with NPM. You can choose one, both, or neither. For more information and example please check documentation.

What are Actors?

Actors are serverless programs that can do almost anything. From simple scripts and web scrapers to complex automation workflows, AI agents, or even always-on services that expose HTTP endpoints.

They can run either locally or on the Apify platform, where you can scale their execution, monitor runs, schedule tasks, integrate them with other services, or even publish and monetize them. If you're new to Apify, learn more about the platform in the Apify documentation.

For more context, read the Actor whitepaper.

What you can build

Almost any Node.js project can become an Actor, including projects for:

Web scraping and crawling - The SDK works seamlessly with Crawlee, which makes Apify a natural place to deploy and scale your crawlers. Start from a ready-made Cheerio template.
Browser automation - Drive a real browser with Playwright, Puppeteer, or Selenium to automate tasks, fill in forms, or test web apps.
AI agents - Host agents built with your framework of choice. Ready-made Actor templates cover LangChain, LangGraph, BeeAI, and Mastra.
MCP servers - Deploy an MCP server as an Actor and make its tools available to any MCP client. See the MCP server and MCP proxy templates.
Web servers and APIs - Run a web server inside an Actor to serve HTTP requests, for example to expose your scraper as a live API. See the Standby templates.

Whatever you build, the Apify SDK doesn't lock you into a particular framework. Bring the libraries you already use, and let Apify run your project in the cloud.

Apify SDK

Quick Start

What are Actors?

What you can build

Support

Upgrading

Contributing

License

Acknowledgments