How to Use Apify Actors (Beginner Friendly Guide)

If you want to collect data from websites automatically, Apify Actors are your best friend. In this post, I’ll show you what Actors are, why they matter, and how to use them step by step — even if you’re just getting started. What Are Apify Actors? An Actor is a small cloud program that does a specific job. Think of it like this: Actor = A bot that runs in the cloud and performs a task for you. For example, an Actor can: Scrape product data from an e-commerce site Collect Instagram or Twitter data Monitor a website for changes Extract contact information Clean webpage content for AI use Instead of building everything from scratch, you can just run an existing Actor. Step 1: Create an Apify Account Go to apify.com and create a free account. Once you log in, you’ll see the dashboard. This is where you manage your Actors, runs, and datasets. Step 2: Find an Actor Click on Store in the dashboard. The Apify Store contains ready-made Actors built by Apify and the community. For example, you