What is Bright Data?
Bright Data is a well-known proxy provider that offers extensive tools and products to users looking for data scraping solutions and proxy services. Here are some of Bright Data’s most popular offerings:
- Residential, Datacenter, and ISP proxies
- Scraping Browser
- Web Unlocker
- SERP API
- Web Scraper APIs
- Scraping Studio
- Open-source Proxy Manager
- Datasets
Bright Data fully complies with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act of 2018 (CCPA). Other important compliance and certifications of Bright Data include CSA STAR Registry, ISO 27001, SOC2, and SOC3.
In this review, we will examine Bright Data’s products in detail to determine whether they are worth the price in 2026. We will consider Bright Data’s benefits, drawbacks, how it works, and how it fares against competitor products.
Bright Data Proxies
Bright Data offers 3 main types of proxy networks: residential, datacenter and ISP. These proxies are distributed across more than 195 countries, and each type is suitable for different use cases. The proxies also come with advanced customization options, regardless of the requirements. Furthermore, they support HTTP/HTTPS and SOCKS5 protocols, and you can access them through various flexible payment plans. Let’s check out all of Bright Data’s proxy networks in detail.
Residential Proxies
With more than 400 million stable residential IPs and promised 99.99% proxy uptime, Bright Data’s Residential proxies are used for accessing public data and bypassing robust blocking technologies and restrictions.
These proxies use residential IPs that are assigned to real home and company networks, making them challenging to detect by websites’ security measures. You can rotate residential IPs without any limitations, and the geolocation targeting capabilities allow you to target the locations based on country, state, city, ASN, and ZIP code.
In the below screenshot, I have selected my location as ‘Brazil.’
The cost of subscribing to the Residential Proxies’ service depends on what plan you choose. With the flexible no-commitment plan, you can pay $4.00/GB as you use the service. However, other plans start from $3.50/GB.
Bright Data Residential Proxy Advantages
- Vast rotating real-peer IP pool
- Ability to access protected websites
- Wide range of IP locations
- Extremely stable with almost no downtime
Datacenter Proxies
Datacenter proxies are the most accessible proxies because of their affordable cost and high speed. However, websites can easily detect them, and they are not recommended for anonymity. These proxies originate from server farms and are not affiliated with home networks or internet providers. That’s why various websites can block data center IPs more easily. As a result, datacenter proxies are ideal for data scraping from uncomplicated websites.
Below I have selected a datacenter proxy located in Melbourne, Australia.
The price starts at $1.40 per IP for up to 10 IPs ($14 billed monthly). PAYG plans start at $0.6/GB. Overall, as cost-effective and fast proxy networks, datacenter proxies can help users efficiently collect data. Moreover, many small businesses use these types of proxies for brand protection and competitive intelligence.
Bright Data Datacenter Proxy Advantages
- Very affordable compared to other proxies
- Fast data collection speed
- Perfect for collecting data from simple websites
ISP Proxies
ISP proxies are a combination of residential and datacenter proxies. They use IP addresses provided by ISPs and assigned to data centers. This allows them to provide the stability and speed of datacenter proxies while being secure and reliable like residential proxies. So, the probability of being identified by website blockers is low.
Below I have configured an ISP proxy with ‘Japan’ as the location.
Bright Data offers more than 1.3 million static ISP IPs. These IPs are the best option for managing social media or e-commerce accounts that need static IPs.
Providing the best qualities of residential and data center proxies, the cost of subscribing to ISP proxies is much higher than that of other types. With the PAYG plan, you can pay $8/GB. Annual plans start from $18 per month.
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Bright Data ISP Proxy Advantages
- Very fast response time
- Highly resistant to IP bans
- High-quality static IPs
The table below compares all the proxy types offered by Bright Data. These proxies are compared based on IP Pool, the target audience, location coverage, and their use cases.
| Proxy Type | IP Pool | Target Audience | Location Coverage | Use Cases |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Residential | 400 million+ | Web scraping professionals | 195 countries | Accessing data and web scraping protected sites. |
| Datacenter | 1.3 million+ | Business and brand owners | 98 countries | High-speed web scraping from unprotected websites. |
| ISP | 1.3 million+ | Social Media Managers | 35 countries | Managing social media accounts and more. |
Bright Data Scraping
Web scraping is one of the most popular use cases of proxies. Over the years, Bright Data has developed different data scraping solutions alongside proxy services to increase the success rate of scraping and make it easier for users to collect data with the proxies. In this section, we take a look at Bright Data’s scraping products.
Scraping Browser
As the only browser with built-in unlocking features, Bright Data’s Scraping Browser is one of the company’s most impressive products. Available since 2023, Scraping Browser allows users to unlock websites and perform web scraping tasks through a simple browser without the need to grapple with complicated programs and bots.
In the below image, you can view my setup inside the Bright Data Playground to run a Puppeteer script that connects to a remote scraping browser to load and interact with target website (Booking.com) data.
Scraping Browser is compatible with browser automation APIs like Puppeteer, Selenium, and Playwright. The scraping browser costs $8/GB in the PAYG plan, but if you subscribe to the annual plan, it can be lowered to $7/GB.
Bright Data Scraping Browser Key Features
- Ability to bypass CAPTCHAs and other restrictions
- Unlocking websites without limitation on any scale
- Compatible with popular browser-based libraries
- Browser fingerprinting
- Using the full IP pool and global location coverage of Bright Data
- Proxy management tools such as Cooling Time and IP rotation
Web Unlocker
Web Unlocker emulates a real user to bypass any blocks, CAPTCHAs, and website restrictions. Bright Data calls it a 3-in-1 scraping solution. The 3 parts are website unlocking, proxy management, and JavaScript rendering.
The tool employs proprietary technology and AI to bypass website-blocking techniques. It is similar to the Scraping Browser, but without the interface. After making a request and including the targeted URL, you will receive the requested data in HTML or JSON. The service costs $1.5/1K results in the PAYG plan, but you can opt for annual plans to reduce the price to $1.3/1K results.
Bright Data Web Unlocker Key Features
- Ability to bypass blocks, CAPTCHAs, and other website block techniques
- Automated Retries for IP address rotation
- No payment needed for unsuccessful requests
- Takes advantage of the full IP pool and location coverage of Bright Data
SERP API
Bright Data SERP API lets you scrape data from search engine pages such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing. You can gather any type of structured SERP data, such as news, images, maps, videos, trends, and jobs.
To see how it handles real-time requests, I tested the Bright Data SERP API playground to extract structured results for the query “french open news”.
The API returns the result in HTML, JSON, or Markdown formats. The PAYG plan costs $1.5 for 1K requests, and for a monthly billing, it starts at $1.3 for 1K requests.
Bright Data SERP API Key Features
- Scraping and monitoring SERPs with fast response time
- Ability to gather any type of SERP data
- Personalization of the search by using different devices and search types
- Target certain locations to get the best results
Web Scraper APIs
With Web Scraper APIs, you don’t need to develop and maintain web scrapers. The scraper library provides access to structured web data from many domains, such as Amazon, LinkedIn, Airbnb, Crunchbase, and Walmart.
Below is my configuration setup inside Bright Data, where I’m dynamically generating an API request to extract real-time LinkedIn job listings by specifying localized target keywords.
The APIs are categorized into AI Search, B2B, eCommerce, and others to meet various requirements. You can get information for Web Scraper APIs in NDJSON and CSV formats. The default cost of Web Scraper API is $1.5/1K records and can be lowered to $1.3/1K records with annual plans.
Bright Data Web Scraper APIs Key Features
- Access to more than 220 APIs in different categories
- Automatic IP rotation and CAPTCHA solver
- Utilizing the wide range of Bright Data’s IP pool and locations
- Unlimited scalability
Scraper Studio
Bright Data’s Scraper Studio is a fully hosted, online IDE for developers and companies who want to write and run AI-powered custom web scrapers.
Scraper Studio provides a visual workflow that maps out the entire scraping lifecycle. As seen in the architecture diagram below, it bridges the gap between your initial request and structured data delivery by handling all that happens behind the scenes. This includes HTML-to-structured-data parsing, automated proxy management, browser fingerprinting, CAPTCHA solving, and JavaScript rendering.
Bright Data Scraper Studio Key Features
- Mention your requirements, and Scraper Studio’s AI generates the underlying scraper API code.
- APIs created are self-healing, meaning the API code is fixed automatically whenever target site structure changes.
- Schedule runs daily, weekly, or at custom intervals.
- Automatically leverages Bright Data’s massive proxy infrastructure and CAPTCHA-solving capabilities out of the box.
The PAYG plan of Scraper Studio costs $1.5/1K requests and $1.3/1K requests on annual plans.
Summary of Bright Data Scraping Solutions
The table below compares Bright Data’s scraping solutions based on starting price, target audience, and use cases.
| Scraping Solution | Starting Price | Target Audience | Use Cases |
|---|---|---|---|
| Scraping Browser | $8/GB | Web scraping professionals | Solving CAPTCHAs and interactive dynamic scraping |
| Web Unlocker | $1.5/1K requests | Businesses in need of easy web scraping | Bypassing protected websites and market research |
| Web Scraper APIs | $1.5/1K requests | Data analysts, developers, and more | General web scraping, price monitoring, and more |
| Scraper Studio | $1.5/1K requests | Developers and companies with in-house data collection teams | Building, deploying, and managing custom AI-powered scraping scripts |
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Bright Data Features
Bright Data offers the following 5 key features:
1. Proxy Manager
Managing Bright Data proxies is done through the open-source official proxy manager that the company offers for free. It is an advanced tool that helps users speed up the process of extracting data and take complete control of the proxies, location of IPs, and more. Users can download and install Bright Data’s proxy manager from the official website. Here are some of the key features of Bright Data’s Proxy Manager:
- IP rotation and session management
- Real-time preview of traffic
- Ability to automatically retry failed requests
- Detailed statistics and logs
- Ability to enable routing of SOCKS5 requests
2. Location Coverage
Bright Data offers residential proxy IPs from 195 countries worldwide. Moreover, the Datacenter IPs are available from 98 countries, and the ISP IPs are from many locations in 35 countries. For precise geo-targeting, after choosing the country, you can limit the IPs based on state, city, ASN, and ZIP code.
Here are the top 6 countries with the most IPs available:
- United States: 9.8M+ 1 IPs
- India: 5.9M+ IPs
- Brazil: 4.7M+ IPs
- Germany: 2M+ IPs
- China: 1.2M+ IPs
- Great Britain: 1.1M+ IPs
3. Integrations
Users can seamlessly integrate Bright Data’s proxies with third-party software. There are more than 50 different software that are compatible with Bright Data’s proxies. This includes popular web scraping tools and automation software. Here are some of the most important programs that can be used alongside Bright Data’s proxies:
- Playwright
- Selenium
- AdsPower
- Puppeteer
- XLogin
- BrowseScan
There are detailed guides on Bright Data’s website on how to integrate the proxies with various software.
4. IP Pool Size
Bright Data offers one of the largest pool sizes compared to other proxy providers. Most of them are residential IPs, but the number of datacenter and ISP proxies is impressive as well.
Here is the number of IPs for each type of Bright Data proxy available:
- Residential Proxies: 400M+ IPs
- Datacenter Proxies: 1.3M+ IPs
- ISP Proxies: 1.3M+ IPs
5. Data Security
Bright Data hosts its systems in multiple Availability Zones at Amazon Web Services. Due to this, the data is kept secure and available to users at all times. Bright Data’s security model is designed based on international standards like ISO 27001, ISO 27018, and OWASP Top 10.
All the traffic and user data is encrypted, and the company conducts external security audits and tests regularly. Bright Data tracks all user activities using audit logs. These logs help Bright Data make sure to take advantage of the platform in compliance with company policies and laws.
Furthermore, the company can help users with audit logs. Providing support and troubleshooting is quite easy using audit logs because the steps taken by users are clear, and the problem can be identified faster.
Here are a few more security measures that put Bright Data above many other proxy providers:
- Periodic security training for developers
- Multiple layers of defense mechanisms, such as DDoS mitigation
- Bug bounty program for security researchers
- Backing up user data every 5 minutes
Performance and Reliability
Providing a reliable connection is the ultimate goal of a great proxy service. Bright Data has an impressive track record that shows strong results for the performance of 400 million+ residential IPs. Bright Data claims to provide a 99.95% success rate for residential proxies, which is among the highest success rates of any residential proxy provider.
Furthermore, with a promised 99.99% network uptime, Bright Data provides fast and reliable connectivity. Datacenter proxies’ performance is even more impressive, with a nearly 0.24s response time.
Customer Support
Bright Data offers 24/7 live support to help users solve an issue or guide them to find a suitable service and product to use. Response time is under 15 minutes.
According to Trustpilot reviews, customers are happy with the quality of customer support. The steps to utilize some of Bright Data’s services and products are quite complex, and this is considered a weak point for the provider.
Use Cases
Bright Data’s services are available for multiple needs, and the main requirements are mentioned below:
- Web Scraping: Extracting data from various websites using bots and automatic tools is called web scraping. Using Bright Data proxies and data scraping products, users can collect data without website blocks and IP bans.
- Market Research: Many businesses employ proxy services in order to analyze data, consumer behavior, and overall market conditions. Offering a service to anonymously access competitor websites, and analyze products and pricing is one of Bright Data’s main appeals.
- Ad Verification: Online brands take advantage of proxies to ensure that digital ads are displayed correctly to different audiences around the world. The large IP pool and location coverage of Bright Data make it easy for users to verify the ads in different regions.
- Social Media Management: Social media managers usually manage multiple accounts at the same time. To have regular access to social media websites, they need reliable IPs that won’t be blocked. Bright Data’s ISP proxies help in this situation.
- App Testing: Many companies utilize mobile proxies to ensure their apps perform well for all users from different locations. Moreover, with the scalability and low response time of Bright Data’s proxy services, developers can test their apps in various network conditions, such as times of high traffic, to stabilize the performance.
How does Bright Data Source IPs?
There is a concern among users that the IPs from proxy providers can be unethically sourced with the consent of the IP users. Unethically sourced IPs can have legal consequences for the users. So, Bright Data has made sure to address the source of IPs offered in its proxy services.
Bright Data implements a software development kit (SDK) into the applications of its partners. When users install the app, they can choose to watch ads in order to continue using the app or opt into Bright Data’s network. This way, they allow Bright Data to use the IP as a proxy.
The company won’t collect any user data and ensures the security of the IP owner and proxy user. The IP owners only need to have the device idle and connect it to the internet while it has enough battery power or it is plugged in. Once the SDK is implemented, it helps with user retention.
Bright Data Datasets
For users who don’t want to deal with proxy services, web scraping tools, or coding, pre-built datasets are helpful. Bright Data has a large collection of ready-made datasets that can contain the data you need. The datasets are divided into various categories, such as business, e-commerce, real estate, Social Media, and finance, and Bright Data regularly updates them.
Any company or individual that needs data collection from a popular website can potentially find it in Bright Data’s Datasets for easy access. You can access the datasets with a one-time payment that starts at $250 for 100K records. Discounts are available for monthly, quarterly, and biannual refreshes.
How Bright Data Compares with Competitors
The table below compares Bright Data with Oxylabs, Decodo, and IPRoyal, based on the available IP Pool, location coverage, cost, security measures, and customization options.
In addition to Bright Data, you should consider the pros and cons of its competitors to make an informed decision. Oxylabs is another proxy service that comes very close to Bright Data in terms of security and customization, and it offers a larger IP pool. Decodo and IPRoyal are cheaper options that provide decent services and are more suitable for beginners.
Final Verdict
Perfect for:
Corporate data teams and data analysts who need a massive, highly compliant 400M+ IP pool with advanced session control.
Developers who want to bypass complex CAPTCHAs and website restrictions automatically.
Not ideal for:
Small Budgets & Solopreneurs: The premium cost and pay-as-you-go proxy rates can quickly become too expensive for casual users or tiny startups.
Absolute beginners: The highly technical features, like custom session control, ISP routing, and the Scraper Studio require a steep learning curve for novices.
