Bright Data alternatives are worth a look if you need proxies or a scraping API but find Bright Data’s platform larger, pricier or more complex than your project requires. Bright Data is one of the biggest names in web data. Its own site lists residential, ISP and datacenter proxies, a residential pool of 400 million+ IPs across 195 countries, an Unlocker API, SERP API, Browser API and Crawl API, Scraper APIs for 800+ websites, prebuilt datasets and managed data collection, and it reports more than 50,000 customers. It also publishes a detailed compliance program, including KYC checks, an acceptable use policy and opt-in consent for its peer network.
So why do teams look at Bright Data competitors? The reasons we hear most are practical. Pricing is spread across many products and units (per GB, per IP, per thousand requests, per record), which can make costs hard to forecast for a small team. The breadth of the platform means more to learn when you only need one thing, such as a simple scraping API. And legal posture varies by buyer: Bright Data has defended public-data scraping in US courts and prevailed in 2024 cases brought by Meta and X, but some compliance teams simply prefer a vendor whose product scope and policies match a narrower risk appetite. None of this makes Bright Data a poor choice; it means the best tool depends on the job.
Below are the top Bright Data alternatives in 2026, covering both proxy networks and scraping APIs. We checked features, pricing and IP sourcing statements on each vendor’s own site, and we excluded providers linked to malware-sourced proxy networks or law enforcement takedowns. For a wider view of API options, see our comparison of the best web scraping APIs.
Bright Data Alternatives At A Glance
Company
Headquarters
Best For
Standout Trait or Pricing Model
Oxylabs
Vilnius, Lithuania
Enterprise proxies and scraping at Bright Data scale
175M+ residential IPs; residential from $6 per GB
Decodo
Vilnius, Lithuania
Lower-cost proxies with a simple dashboard
Residential from $2 per GB; Web Data API from $0.15 per 1K requests
Zyte
Ireland (remote-first)
Scraping API priced by site difficulty
From $0.06 per 1,000 successful responses
Apify
Prague, Czech Republic
Prebuilt scrapers and custom Actors
Free $5 monthly usage; paid from $19 per month
SOAX
London, UK (footer address)
Residential and mobile proxies with flexible targeting
12M+ IPs used in the past 30 days; credit-based pricing
ScraperAPI
Not published
Simple scraping API with structured endpoints
From $49 per month for 100,000 credits
ZenRows
Not published
Scraping infrastructure for AI agents
Free 5,000 credits; paid from $19 per month
ScrapingBee
Not published
Developer-friendly API with AI extraction
From $19 per month for 75,000 credits
ScrapingAnt
Not published
Low-cost API with unlimited concurrency
Free 10,000 credits; paid from $19 per month
Webshare
SF Bay Area, California, USA
Budget datacenter and static residential proxies
Self-serve plans; small free allowance
Best Bright Data Alternatives In 2026
1. Oxylabs — The Closest Like-For-Like Enterprise Alternative
Oxylabs, founded in 2015 and headquartered in Vilnius, Lithuania, is the provider most often shortlisted alongside Bright Data because it matches its scope: residential, mobile, ISP, dedicated ISP and datacenter proxies, a Web Unblocker, a Web API with search and scrape endpoints, an agent browser and datasets. It states a pool of 175 million+ residential IPs across 195 locations and more than 15,000 clients.
On sourcing, Oxylabs says every IP in its network comes from an informed, consenting user who receives value in exchange, and it describes itself as a founding member of the Ethical Web Data Collection Initiative. It publishes a residential proxy sourcing handbook for buyers who want the detail.
Pricing is published per product. Residential proxies start at $6 per GB on the smallest tier, datacenter proxies from $1 per IP, ISP proxies from $1.50 per IP and the Web Scraper API from $0.50 per 1,000 results, with $5 in welcome credits to test. Unit prices fall with volume, so large buyers should ask for a quote.
Full proxy and scraping API range comparable to Bright Data
Consent-based residential sourcing and EWDCI membership
Published entry pricing with free welcome credits
Best for: enterprises that want Bright Data’s breadth from a different supplier.
2. Decodo — Lower Entry Prices And A Simpler Experience
Decodo is the new name for Smartproxy, rebranded in April 2025 with the same company, team and network. Based in Vilnius, it offers residential, static residential, mobile and datacenter proxies, a Site Unblocker, and a Web Data API with scrape, search, map and crawl endpoints that return Markdown, JSON, CSV or HTML. It states a pool of 125 million+ IPs, including 115 million+ residential IPs in 195+ locations, and more than 135,000 clients.
Decodo’s appeal as a Bright Data alternative for web scraping is cost and ease. Residential proxies start at $2 per GB, datacenter proxies at $0.02 per IP and the Web Data API at $0.15 per 1,000 requests, with a 3-day proxy trial and a free API starter plan with $5 in testing credits. Developers get an MCP server, CLI and Python, TypeScript and Go SDKs. Decodo describes its residential IPs as ethically sourced from consenting users and publishes an ethical sourcing and usage page.
Residential proxies from $2 per GB
Web Data API with scrape, search, map and crawl endpoints
MCP server and SDKs for Python, TypeScript and Go
Best for: small and mid-sized teams that want residential proxies and a scraping API at lower entry prices.
3. Zyte — A Scraping API Priced By How Hard The Site Is
Zyte, built by the team behind the open-source Scrapy framework, is a strong alternative for teams that want a scraping API rather than raw proxies. Zyte API handles unblocking, browser rendering and retries behind one endpoint, and its pricing model is unusually transparent: every website falls into one of five difficulty tiers, from Simple to Advanced, and you pay per 1,000 successful responses for that tier.
Pay-as-you-go HTTP responses range from $0.13 to $1.27 per 1,000 depending on difficulty, and browser-rendered responses from $1.01 to $16.08. Monthly commitments from $100 lower those rates, down to a headline figure of $0.06 per 1,000 successful responses. New users get $5 of free credit and a 30-day trial. Because you pay only for successful responses, cost forecasting is simpler than with bandwidth-billed proxies.
Zyte also runs a managed data service and founded the Ethical Web Data Collection Initiative, and it is the natural home for teams already running Scrapy spiders.
Five difficulty tiers with published per-1,000 rates
Charges only for successful responses
$5 free credit and a 30-day trial
Best for: Python and Scrapy teams that want per-success pricing tied to site difficulty.
4. Apify — Prebuilt Scrapers And Your Own Code On One Platform
Apify competes with Bright Data’s Scraper APIs and Scraper Studio from a different angle. Instead of a fixed catalog of endpoints, it hosts a store of more than 90,000 Actors, packaged scrapers and automations built by Apify and its community, alongside the infrastructure to run your own JavaScript or Python code, schedule jobs, store results and manage proxies.
This makes Apify especially good when you need data from a long tail of sites: there is often an Actor already, and if not you can write one and run it on the same platform. Plans are usage-based, starting with a free tier that includes $5 of monthly usage, then Starter at $19 per month, Scale at $199 and Business at $999, each with prepaid usage and falling compute unit rates. Enterprise plans include custom scraping solutions and a dedicated team.
90,000+ Actors in the Apify Store
Run custom JavaScript or Python on the same cloud
Scheduling, storage and proxies included
Best for: teams that want ready-made scrapers for many sites plus a place to run custom code.
5. SOAX — Residential And Mobile Proxies With Managed Data Options
SOAX focuses on residential and mobile proxies across 195+ locations, with a platform built around sessions, rules and packages that control how requests behave. It reports 12 million+ unique IPs used in the past 30 days and more than 717 million requests a day on average over the last 90 days. A Proxy Mesh product provides fully managed distributed proxy infrastructure, and a Managed Data Acquisition service builds custom data pipelines to your schema.
Pricing is credit-based, with costs that depend on plan and country tier, and a free sandbox account lets you explore the dashboard before buying. SOAX publishes a KYC and KYB policy, a data processing agreement and an abuse reporting form, and backs its service with a 99.9% uptime SLA. It lists a London address in its site footer.
Residential and mobile IPs in 195+ locations
Session and rule controls for request behavior
KYC and KYB policy and a 99.9% uptime SLA
Best for: teams that need residential or mobile IPs with fine control over sessions and targeting.
6. ScraperAPI — One Endpoint, Predictable Monthly Plans
ScraperAPI is a straightforward choice when you want to send a URL and get back HTML or parsed data without managing proxies. Every plan includes structured data endpoints with JSON auto-parsing and DataPipeline, a no-code scheduler for recurring jobs, and an async service is available for large batches. The company says it handles about 36 billion requests a month and serves more than 10,000 brands.
Plans are simple to compare: Hobby at $49 per month for 100,000 credits, Startup at $149 for 1 million, Business at $299 for 3 million and larger tiers up to Advanced at $1,975, with about 10% off for annual billing. A 7-day trial includes 5,000 credits with no card. Geotargeting is limited to the US and EU on the two entry plans and global from Business up.
Structured data endpoints with JSON auto-parsing
DataPipeline scheduling on every plan
7-day trial with 5,000 credits
Best for: developers who want a single scraping endpoint with fixed monthly pricing.
7. ZenRows — Scraping Infrastructure Built For AI Agents
ZenRows packages scraping as five primitives: Fetch for pages as HTML, Markdown, text or PDF; Extract for structured JSON without selectors; Crawl for following links; Batch for large URL lists with webhooks; and Browser for persistent sessions and multi-step flows. A hosted MCP server, CLI and SDKs make it easy to plug into Claude Code, Cursor, LangChain, LlamaIndex, n8n and other agent tooling. ZenRows says it handles more than 10 billion requests a month.
A free plan includes 5,000 credits a month, and paid plans start at $19 per month. A standard page costs 1 credit, JavaScript rendering 5 and premium proxies 10, failed requests are not charged, and residential proxies are billed in credits per GB. Enterprise plans add an SLA, SOC 2, ISO 27001 and a DPA.
Hosted MCP server and agent-ready docs
Selector-free JSON extraction
No charge for failed requests
Best for: teams building AI agents and LLM applications that need live web access.
8. ScrapingBee — Developer-Friendly API With AI Extraction And Search Results
ScrapingBee is a scraping API aimed at developers who want sensible defaults. It renders JavaScript, rotates proxies, and supports JavaScript scenarios such as clicking, scrolling and typing before the page is captured. You can extract data with CSS or XPath rules or let its AI extraction return structured fields, request Markdown output or screenshots, and use a dedicated Google API that returns search results as JSON for SEO monitoring. An auto mode chooses a working configuration for you.
Plans start at $19 per month for 75,000 credits, with Freelance at $49 for 250,000 and Startup at $99 for 1 million, scaling to enterprise tiers with higher concurrency. You can cancel anytime, and 1,000 free credits are available to test with no card. Teams tracking search rankings may also find our guide to web scraping for SEO useful.
Best for: developers and SEO teams that want a clean API with AI extraction and search result parsing.
9. ScrapingAnt — Low-Cost API With No Concurrency Cap
ScrapingAnt combines a web scraping API with its own residential and datacenter proxies. Each request runs in a fresh, isolated headless Chrome instance through rotating proxies, with support for custom JavaScript, wait-for-selector, cookies and headers. It also returns LLM-ready Markdown, offers an AI data scraper that turns a plain-English field list into JSON, and runs a hosted MCP server for coding assistants. Its residential network covers 3 million+ IPs in 100+ countries with country, state and city targeting and sticky sessions.
Two things stand out against bigger platforms. ScrapingAnt does not cap concurrency on any plan, and failed requests cost nothing. The free plan includes 10,000 credits a month, and paid plans start at $19 per month for 100,000 credits, with Startup at $49 for 500,000 and Business at $249 for 3 million. Standalone proxies are billed by bandwidth, and custom datasets are available for teams that would rather buy the data. Our ScrapingAnt review covers the API in more depth.
No concurrency cap on any plan
Failed requests are free
Residential proxies with city-level targeting
Best for: startups and small teams that want an affordable API with proxies included and no concurrency limits.
10. Webshare — Budget Datacenter And Static Residential Proxies
Webshare, founded in 2018 and based in the San Francisco Bay Area, is a self-serve proxy provider focused on value. It sells shared, private and dedicated datacenter proxies, plus rotating, static, private and dedicated static residential proxies, with SOCKS5 support. The company says it develops its technology in-house, reports more than 60,000 paid customers and handles hundreds of billions of proxy requests a month.
On sourcing, Webshare says its residential proxies come from partners that uphold business ethics and strict compliance, and that a majority of its residential network is Tier A. Datacenter proxies are its strongest fit: they are fast and inexpensive for high-volume work on sites that do not need residential IPs, such as public catalogs and SEO checks. A small free allowance lets you test the dashboard before paying.
Best for: cost-sensitive teams that mostly need datacenter or static residential IPs.
How To Choose Bright Data Alternatives
The right replacement depends on which part of Bright Data you actually use. These questions narrow it down.
Do You Need Proxies Or A Scraping API?
If your team already runs its own crawlers, you mainly need a proxy network, and Oxylabs, Decodo, SOAX and Webshare are the closest swaps. If you want to send a URL and get back clean HTML, Markdown or JSON, a scraping API such as Zyte, ScraperAPI, ZenRows, ScrapingBee or ScrapingAnt removes most of the maintenance. Apify sits in between with prebuilt scrapers. For JavaScript-heavy targets, our list of web scraping APIs for JavaScript-rendered sites goes deeper.
How Is The Residential Network Sourced?
Residential proxies route traffic through real consumer devices, so sourcing matters. Look for a clear statement that users opt in and are compensated, published sourcing documentation, KYC checks on customers and membership of an industry body such as the Ethical Web Data Collection Initiative. Avoid any provider that cannot explain where its IPs come from, and check the news for law enforcement actions before you sign.
Which Pricing Unit Fits Your Workload?
Bandwidth pricing per GB suits light pages and text; per-request or per-success pricing suits heavy pages with images and scripts. Model a typical month with your real page sizes, rendering needs and success rates, then compare the totals. Per-success models, such as Zyte’s, and plans that do not charge failed requests make forecasting easier.
What Will Your Legal Team Ask?
Expect questions about data types, target sites and personal data. Collect only public data you have a legitimate reason to use, respect robots.txt and rate limits, avoid scraping behind logins, and prefer official APIs where they exist. If the data will train AI models, review site terms and copyright with counsel. A vendor with a written acceptable use policy and a willingness to answer due diligence questions will make those conversations easier.
How Should You Run A Trial?
Most providers on this list offer free credits or a short trial, so test before you migrate. Pick 20 to 50 representative URLs from your real targets, run them through two or three candidates on the same day, and record success rate, response time, output quality and cost per successful page. Include at least one difficult target and one simple one, and keep the test small and polite so it does not put load on the sites you are checking.
Conclusion
The top Bright Data alternatives in 2026 cover every part of its platform. Oxylabs is the closest like-for-like enterprise option, Decodo the best value proxy network, and SOAX and Webshare strong picks for specific proxy needs. On the API side, Zyte offers per-success pricing by site difficulty, Apify the largest library of prebuilt scrapers, and ScraperAPI, ZenRows, ScrapingBee and ScrapingAnt simple, developer-friendly endpoints.
Bright Data remains a capable platform, and many teams use it alongside one of these alternatives to Bright Data rather than instead of it. Test two or three options on your real targets, compare success rates and total cost for a typical month, and confirm each vendor’s sourcing and compliance policies before you commit. For more options, our list of proxy-backed data extraction services is a good next stop.
