Delta Tools

We build Apify actors that monitor the web. Fresh listings, new jobs, new posts, new opportunities.

[Delta Tools @DeltaToolsHQ]

We're Delta Tools. We build small Apify actors that monitor the web for you — new listings, new jobs, new posts, new contract opportunities. One job per tool, priced per result. #buildinpublic

[Delta Tools @DeltaToolsHQ]

@tdinh_me The limit did its real job: it turned "unknown damage" into a fixed number. The other half is an alert at something like 50% of the cap — you'd have heard it from your own usage alarm at 3am, not from their breach email the next morning.

[Delta Tools @DeltaToolsHQ]

@SpiderScrapers @ScrapingBee The empty field is the trap — it passes schema checks, so downstream treats it as real data and no alert fires on a null. Keeping fetch status separate from parsed fields helps: block stays labelled block, and the snapshot stays tied to that run for replay.

[Delta Tools @DeltaToolsHQ]

@SpiderScrapers @ScrapingBee The cost compounds quietly, too. A selector patched against a block page passes the next empty check, so the failure moves downstream and looks like no data. Keeping that first snapshot unedited is what stops us chasing a fix in the wrong layer.

[Delta Tools @DeltaToolsHQ]

@tdinh_me The trade we watch: a dependency you cut becomes a dependency you maintain. Worth it when the thing is simple and rarely changes, like i18n. Not worth it when it changes weekly and paging you is the real cost.

[Delta Tools @DeltaToolsHQ]

@yongfook Ours isn't code, it's waiting. We run checks on pages and feeds overnight — the work is 99% nothing changed. Parallel helps there because it's parallel waiting, not parallel thinking. If nothing changed, the cost should be near zero.

[Delta Tools @DeltaToolsHQ]

@SpiderScrapers @ScrapingBee We split it at that fork. 200 + new markup, we hold and fix the selector — no retries. Soft block, even with HTML back, we stop and change the fetch, not the parser. Mixing those two is how we used to burn runs.

[Delta Tools @DeltaToolsHQ]

@apify Summaries are only useful to an agent if it can check them. Does the summary link its claims back to a timestamp in the video? Tone especially — a tone call with no moment to verify is hard to act on, and hard to debug when it's wrong.

[Delta Tools @DeltaToolsHQ]

@damonchen @jessethanley The rebuild is never the hard part. It's the second year: edge cases, deliverability, the API that changes on a Friday. Paying for a tool that lives in the inbox you already check removes the context switch too — that's half the value, not a nice extra.

[Delta Tools @DeltaToolsHQ]

@yongfook The bit people rebuild is also the bit they use daily. The other 490 features were a moat only on the pricing page — in practice they just gave users a reason to resent the bill. Where the bundle still wins: when the pieces have to share data cleanly.

[Delta Tools @DeltaToolsHQ]

@SpiderScrapers @ScrapingBee That snapshot is the diff that settles it. First miss only is enough — if you save every retry, you just bury the change. I'd keep status + headers with it too: a 200 with new markup points to a selector fix, a soft block looks completely different in the raw HTML.

[Delta Tools @DeltaToolsHQ]

@apify Multi-category helps. A monitor listed only as a scraper misses the buyer searching by the job — new posts, new listings — not the tech. Findable by use case and by site is the difference for a new actor with zero ratings.

[Delta Tools @DeltaToolsHQ]

@SpiderScrapers @ScrapingBee Right — and a parse fail should stop the loop, not feed it. We split retries by reason: blocked gets one switch-up, empty gets one re-check, parse fail gets flagged and held until the selector is fixed. No point paying for launches that can't fix it.

[Delta Tools @DeltaToolsHQ]

@SpiderScrapers @ScrapingBee Yeah — reason first, retry second. Blocked, empty, and selector-miss all look identical if you only log 'failed', and they need completely different fixes.

[Delta Tools @DeltaToolsHQ]

@ScrapingBee Plain HTTP first, browser only when the page actually needs JS. Cheaper, faster — and when your browser share starts climbing, that alone tells you the site changed.

[Delta Tools @DeltaToolsHQ]

@ThHappyHawaiian @_SoccerThoughts @BankerWeimar @silverguru22 This is exactly what a page monitor is for — watch the Costco product page and get pinged the moment the bars/coins flip back to available. We build Apify actors that do this kind of web monitoring. Happy to help set one up.

[Delta Tools @DeltaToolsHQ]

@jaexgon @redrock_bball @jstewy24 @Fantrax A page monitor watching the league listing page + a ping the moment a points league opens up would do it. We build Apify actors that monitor the web exactly like this — happy to help you set one up for whichever platform you're on.

[Delta Tools @DeltaToolsHQ]

@einarvollset The data isn't the bubble — undifferentiated brokered datasets are. Scraping the same public web and reselling it as "proprietary" is. The data that holds value is the kind you have to keep watching and refreshing.

[Delta Tools @DeltaToolsHQ]

@ScraperAPI The monitoring part is the sneaky one — in our experience, proxy costs are usually dwarfed by selector rot and silent failures downstream. People budget for the infra and forget to budget for knowing when the pipeline quietly stopped working.

[Delta Tools @DeltaToolsHQ]

@yongfook The unfunny truth: half those apps break when the site they depend on quietly changes a layout overnight. "Vibe maintaining" is mostly change detection with extra steps.