Bright Data, formerly known as Luminati Networks, has been a prominent player in the proxy industry since 2014. Known for providing tools that enable anonymous data collection through proxy servers, the company has set itself apart as a leader in web scraping and data acquisition. Their flagship event, ScrapeCon, brings together experts from multiple disciplines to discuss the latest trends in scraping, compliance, and AI. Although Bright Data excels in web scraping, their proxy services cater to various other use cases. This review will focus on the aspects that differentiate Bright Data from competitors.

APIs and Tools

One of Bright Data’s standout features is its array of advanced tools and APIs, designed to simplify and enhance web scraping and data extraction. Their solutions include the SERP API and Web Unlocker API, which address specific challenges like scraping search engine results or accessing difficult-to-reach websites. Additionally, their Web Scraping API, a headless Scraping Browser, and scraping functions IDE allow users to build or integrate pre-built tools into their workflows. These tools help developers speed up the scraping process while avoiding common pitfalls, like getting blocked.

Another noteworthy offering is Bright Data’s pre-built datasets. Instead of building a scraper from scratch, customers can purchase datasets already collected from popular websites. This includes data from platforms like LinkedIn, Amazon, and Indeed. For many businesses, this option provides a quicker route to the final product without the need for in-house scraping expertise.

We love the business innovation here – taking datasets they’ve already built and maintain from popular web sites and turning it into a product. But for customers that means you don’t even need to build with their tools. It’s a direct path to the end goal.

Datasets include various news and finance sites like Yahoo and BBC; business datasets like LinkedIn, Crunchbase and Indeed; e-commerce from Amazon, eBay, Walmart and Alibaba among 30 others; popular MLS and real estate site sets and scraped social media data from all the popular social media sites.

Knowledge and Leadership

Bright Data has great reviews for customer support and their team is very knowledgeable about things their customers need to know beyond just how to set up their proxies. As much of their learning has been turned into ancillary products and tools, you will benefit from working with a team that understands not just how to use proxies, but how to achieve results. In fact, there is probably nowhere better for Enterprise level companies to turn than Bright Data.

Bright Data has played a critical role in shaping the legal landscape of web scraping. Their legal battles with Meta and X have positioned them as both a technical leader and an advocate for the legality of scraping. They work not only to comply with regulations but also to set the standard for how web scraping can be conducted both ethically and legally. For businesses concerned about compliance, this makes Bright Data an attractive choice.

Bright Data explores the latest and greatest trends in the scraping and proxy world with their annual ScrapeCon event, for which the replays are still available on their web site. ScrapeCon covers hot topics from AI to legal and compliance issues.

They have over 1,000 associated members on LinkedIn, giving them great reach into the various industries they serve, but many users know their team by name – because they use real names.

Pricing Options

For smaller scale or lower budget users, one of the road blocks to using them has been their pricing. It’s a blue chip company with blue chip pricing. However, they have, over time, created more competitive pricing for smaller users. For example, their Pay As You Go plans (available for residential proxies at $8.40 per GB and $0.6 / GB for datacenter, for example). It’s still not the lowest pricing you can find, but it’s a lot more accessible than it used to be.

These pricing options have opened up the Bright Data proxy network to smaller companies who need reliability but don’t have the enterprise budget. This could theoretically open them up to nefarious users as well, but Bright Data protects against that with a mandatory KYC for their residential and mobile networks.

We also found integration guides for over 50 other tools for everything from Anti-Detect and Multi-accounting browsers like Ghost Browser and GoLogin to deeper integrations at the OS level. This is just one type of content, among many, they’ve created to help users who are interested in learning more and getting things done.

Conclusion

Bright Data stands out in a crowded proxy market due to its comprehensive tools, legal expertise, and robust infrastructure. Their solutions are tailored for businesses that need reliable, large-scale proxy networks, whether for scraping, data collection, or market research. While their pricing reflects their premium status, the scalability and support they provide justify the cost for many users.

Interested in trying Bright Data? Visit their website to learn more or explore their free trial options.