Apify
The Apify MCP server enables your AI agents to extract data from social media, search engines, maps, e-commerce sites, or any other website using thousands of ready-made scrapers, crawlers, and automation tools available on the Apify Store.
What is Apify?
Apify is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that allows AI assistants like Claude, Cursor, and VS Code to apify mcp server enables your ai agents to extract data from social media, search engines, maps, e-commerce sites, or any other website using thousands of ready-made scrapers, crawlers, and automation...
The Apify MCP server enables your AI agents to extract data from social media, search engines, maps, e-commerce sites, or any other website using thousands of ready-made scrapers, crawlers, and automation tools available on the Apify Store.
This server falls under the Search & Data Extraction category on MCPgee, the world's largest MCP server directory with 33,000+ servers.
Features
- The Apify MCP server enables your AI agents to extract data
Use Cases
Maintainer
Works with
Installation
NPM
npx -y @apify/actors-mcp-serverManual Installation
npx -y @apify/actors-mcp-serverConfiguration
Configuration Details
claude_desktop_config.json
Performance
Response Metrics
Resource Usage
How to Set Up and Use Apify
The Apify MCP Server gives AI agents access to thousands of web scraping, crawling, and data extraction Actors from the Apify Store — covering social media, search engines, maps, e-commerce, and virtually any public website. Using a small set of discovery and execution tools, an AI assistant can find the right Actor for any scraping task, inspect its input schema, run it, and retrieve structured results, all authenticated with a single Apify API token and accessible via a hosted HTTPS endpoint or local stdio mode.
Prerequisites
- An Apify account (free tier available at apify.com)
- An Apify API token from apify.com/account/integrations
- Node.js 18 or higher for local stdio mode
- An MCP client such as Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, or VS Code
Get your Apify API token
Log in to apify.com and navigate to Settings > Integrations. Copy your personal API token (starts with 'apify_api_'). This token authorizes all Actor runs on your behalf.
Connect via the hosted MCP endpoint (recommended)
The easiest setup is to point your MCP client at the hosted server at mcp.apify.com. This endpoint supports OAuth for clients like Claude.ai, or Bearer token authentication for programmatic clients.
{
"mcpServers": {
"apify": {
"url": "https://mcp.apify.com",
"headers": {
"Authorization": "Bearer YOUR_APIFY_API_TOKEN"
}
}
}
}Or use local stdio mode with Claude Desktop
For Claude Desktop (which requires stdio), configure the npx command. The APIFY_TOKEN environment variable provides authentication.
{
"mcpServers": {
"apify": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@apify/actors-mcp-server"],
"env": {
"APIFY_TOKEN": "apify_api_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
}
}
}
}Customize which tools are loaded
Use the --tools flag (CLI) or ?tools= query parameter (hosted) to control which tool categories are active. Available categories: actors, docs, runs, storage, experimental. You can also load a specific Actor directly.
npx @apify/actors-mcp-server --tools actors,docs,apify/google-search-scraperRestart your client and test
Restart Claude Desktop or reload your MCP client. Ask Claude to search for an Actor to confirm the server is working correctly.
Apify Examples
Client configuration
Claude Desktop stdio configuration for Apify MCP server with default tools.
{
"mcpServers": {
"apify": {
"command": "npx",
"args": ["-y", "@apify/actors-mcp-server"],
"env": {
"APIFY_TOKEN": "apify_api_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx"
}
}
}
}Prompts to try
Example prompts to send to Claude once the Apify MCP server is connected.
- "Find an Apify Actor that can scrape LinkedIn company pages"
- "Use the Google Search scraper to get the top 5 results for 'open source LLMs 2025'"
- "Scrape all reviews for this Amazon product: https://amazon.com/dp/XXXXXXXXX"
- "Extract emails and phone numbers from Google Maps results for 'coffee shops in Austin'"
- "Search Apify documentation for how to handle pagination in scrapers"Troubleshooting Apify
Error: APIFY_TOKEN is not set or invalid
Confirm the APIFY_TOKEN environment variable is correctly set in your MCP client config. Tokens start with 'apify_api_'. Regenerate at apify.com/account/integrations if the token has been revoked.
Actor run completes but get-dataset-items returns empty results
Some Actors take time to finish. Check the run status using get-actor-run with the runId from the call-actor response. Wait for the status to be SUCCEEDED before calling get-dataset-items.
SSE endpoint at mcp.apify.com/sse no longer works
The /sse endpoint has been removed. Update your client config to use https://mcp.apify.com (without /sse) which uses the newer Streamable HTTP transport.
Frequently Asked Questions about Apify
What is Apify?
Apify is a Model Context Protocol (MCP) server that apify mcp server enables your ai agents to extract data from social media, search engines, maps, e-commerce sites, or any other website using thousands of ready-made scrapers, crawlers, and automation tools available on the apify store. It connects AI assistants to external tools and data sources through a standardized interface.
How do I install Apify?
Install via npm with the command: npx -y @apify/actors-mcp-server. Then add the server configuration to your AI client's JSON config file (e.g., claude_desktop_config.json or .cursor/mcp.json).
Which AI clients work with Apify?
Apify works with all major MCP-compatible AI clients including Claude Desktop, Claude Code, Cursor, VS Code (GitHub Copilot), Windsurf, and Cline.
Is Apify free to use?
Yes, Apify is open source and available under the MIT license. You can use it freely in both personal and commercial projects.
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Quick Config Preview
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