Bright Data Reviews

The main use case for me is utilizing Bright Data's unblocking services that allow me to receive the whole protected web page via a simple API call.

The main use case for me is utilizing Bright Data's unblocking services that allow me to receive the whole protected web page via a simple API call. It is quite easy to use and reliable, which is important for large businesses. This is valuable to my organization as it is one of the main proxy providers I use in my projects and in client projects, wherever possible.

Bright Data could significantly improve its support service. There are many tensions every time something occurs, although this doesn't happen frequently. A faster support team, ideally in real-time, would be beneficial.

I started using Bright Data somewhere between 2017 and 2018.

Bright Data is a stable product. Ninety-nine percent of the time, it is available and serves well.

I believe they could significantly improve their support service because there are tensions every time something happens, which is not often. I would like it to be like real-time.

Neutral

The installation, setup, and deployment are not difficult at all.

Pricing depends on your use case. It might be expensive or cheap, depending on how you use it, the way you use it, and the volume of traffic or number of requests.

I recommend using Bright Data. I rate it an eight because while I am satisfied with most aspects, some sides of client support need improvement. I would give the overall solution a rating ofeight out of ten.

We were using Bright Data to scrape and log in to LinkedIn. Our main use was for proxies. Our internal data team used proxies to unlock a few blocked regions and access profiles stationed in the UK and US from clients.

I think Bright Data is one of the best tools in the market. I've tested many, but Bright Data doesn't have much downtime. It's very fast compared to other proxy providers. Speed is their main USP, which is what they're selling it for. They're also good with security. The signal remains the same if something goes wrong with our internet connections or laptops. It doesn't affect the profiles or other things we're using. It just cuts off the internet connection directly. That's one of the best use cases.

The main reason we left the product was that it was very expensive. They need to adjust their packages according to who uses them. They're very expensive compared to the market, probably because they believe they're the best. But it's too costly for companies like ours to continue with it. Another issue is that their support team is a bit slow.

When you raise an issue, it gets delayed. Even though you have an assigned account manager, you have to go through the support team, raise a ticket, and wait a long time for a response. That's a downside. We initially chose Bright Data a few years ago based on a referral from a colleague who knew people who had used it.

I have been working with the product for two years. 

Regarding stability, it's quite a stable product. They did have some bugs, but they informed us about them. If there's going to be an update or if something goes wrong, they immediately send an email saying certain things are down. They list the proxies or countries that can't be reached and let us know they're working on it. This keeps us aware of any issues.

Bright Data was scalable for us. We added users and increased the number of proxies we used, and it continued to perform the same. They don't charge for additional users, but adding more ports significantly increases the cost. You have to upgrade packages as you scale up. However, regardless of which package you're on, they treat you the same in terms of performance and service.

At the time, our company had about 20-25 people using the tool. I was the main administrator and gave admin access to one other person as a backup in case I wasn't available to manage it.

Setting up Bright Data was a bit difficult compared to other service providers. When they explain everything on the call, it seems very technical. Some people take a few weeks to understand how to do it. I was able to manage it and help my team, but for someone without a technical background, it would take quite some time. There's a lot to do to create the proxy port.

The tool is worth the money if you use it to the fullest extent. As I mentioned, they are among the best proxy providers in the market. However, we later discovered that their competitors offer similar reliability and are significantly cheaper. At the time, we were satisfied because Bright Data was secure and reliable. But when we eventually found alternatives, we realized they were much less expensive.

Regarding pricing, we paid about 1000 dollars monthly for Bright Data. We started with their pay-as-you-go plan, which was expensive as we were charged per GB. Then we moved to the 500 dollar package, then the 1000 dollar package. We considered the 2000 dollar package they introduced recently.

One disadvantage is that you're charged the full amount even if you don't use all the data. They don't transfer unused credits to the next month - if you don't use it, the credits disappear. This was a drawback for us.

I would recommend Bright Data if you have proxy needs. It's one of the best options. However, to understand it well, I suggest you have a call with them and record it. Then review the technicalities they explain later. It's hard to grasp everything in one go unless you have a specific IT department. We needed time to understand what they were saying.

If you're a beginner joining our team today, learning Bright Data depends on your technical skills. If you're good on the technical side, it'll be easier for you. If not, it'll take some time to understand. Now, we have training videos, so learning is much easier compared to when we started. We didn't use Bright Data for any of our AI projects. 

Overall, I'd rate Bright Data an eight or even eight point five out of ten. I've tried many proxy providers, and Bright Data is reliable for speed and connection, which is crucial for proxy use. That's why I recommend it. If they competed better on price with their competitors, it would be a solid ten. But due to no rollover credits, high prices, and not-so-good support services, I think eight is the best rating.

I utilize the solution primarily to scrape social media platforms for academic and research purposes. Additionally, I employ it in my classroom to gather social media data that students use for data visualizations and similar projects.

The platform's ease of use is a significant advantage. The web interface allows me to initiate queries easily and returns data in a structured format. This functionality is useful for platforms like Instagram and TikTok, where data scraping can be challenging. It provides enough data to gain insights into specific phenomena, which is valuable for my undergraduate and graduate courses.

One area for product improvement might be the interface's complexity for students who need more coding experience. 

I have been using Bright Data for approximately three years. 

The platform has not worked properly in some instances. In those cases, I contacted the Bright Data representative, and their IT team effectively resolved the issues.

I rate the stability a seven out of ten. 

The platform is capable of handling large volumes of data.

The technical support team is excellent. Despite the challenge posed by the time difference due to their location, they address and resolve issues efficiently.

The setup and deployment are relatively easy.

A Bright Data representative handles the initial setup for my students, creating accounts through my Bright Data account. My students then use these accounts to access the scraping tools. One of my students even used the data from a social media class for her thesis, which was a successful project.

The solution's proxy management tools help maintain platform access for extended periods, enhancing data-gathering workflows.

It is generally user-friendly once you understand the interface. Some prior experience is helpful.

It is a valuable tool for those interested in scraping social media platforms. Once you familiarize yourself with the interface, it is relatively straightforward to use, and they offer tutorials to assist with the learning process.

I rate it a ten. 

For the article I wrote, I used it mostly for scraping. I used it as a proxy to demonstrate how we can use Bright Data's browser proxy for scraping.

When I was building the product recently, I had a requirement where users would bookmark a website, and the tool would get meta-information about that website. Some websites would not allow access via non-browser clients to access their content. In that case, I would not be able to generate the meta-information. So, I had the option of using a Bright Data proxy, and I integrated it into the product.

These are the two cases where I used it. I know Bright Data has other offerings, but I have not had a requirement where I would need them yet.

What I liked about Bright Data was the cost. It wasn't expensive compared to other providers. And it works. For now, what really made me go for it was that it is cheaper for me compared to other trusted providers I came across, and it worked.

I didn't have much requirement. It was just one aspect of Bright Data I used. From my experience and other things I've heard, I think they are also secure and they have a very large pool of IP proxies that they offer, which pretty much makes your work successful. You don't have the chances of getting detected by blockers.

For Bright Data, what I had trouble with was getting my credentials. The dashboard was a bit too technical, and even with my technical experience, I had a hard time finding where to get my browser proxy, set up credentials, and get things ready. I'm guessing someone without much technical experience would have an even harder time integrating Bright Data.

So, if the dashboard was improved to be more intuitive and perhaps had some hints and help to guide people on where to identify the resources they're looking for, that would go a long way.

I used it once. 

It works. It has been stable for me. I didn't face any bugs. 

I would rate the stability an eight out of ten. 

It is a scalable product. If I use up my resources and want to integrate any other product, I think it's straightforward to include it. So I think they have that one. It's scalable. Again, I'm writing this feedback based on my use case and what I've used.

So it can handle, like, scalability and reliability during high data demands. This product has the features and infrastructure to handle that. 

So, I would rate it a nine out of ten.

I had everything I needed. I could access everything from their knowledge base. I think they have pretty good community support, and I could get answers to anything I wanted without having to contact support. So I've not had a requirement where I couldn't find what I'm looking for and had to reach out to support yet.

The setup is somewhat okay. Aside from the complicated dashboard they have, I think it's because they have many products they offer, and they try to bring everything accessible for people. Aside from that, it was pretty straightforward to get me up and running.

It is worth the money. Even the free plan would be enough for most use cases. So, I do think it's worth the money.

The licensing is cheap. 

I did check out some other providers, other alternatives to Bright Data, but I ended up using Bright Data.

I decided to go with Bright data because I was convinced that I'm using a more trusted platform, and they had more positive reviews than other platforms. Bright Data was pretty standard for me, and I just went with them.

In my use case, you'd most likely need technical experience. But if you are using some tools where you just need to plug in a proxy, then you might not really need technical experience.

In my use case, I had to write code and plug in the proxy and the credentials through my HTTP client. So, that was more technical for me. But I think it's also possible to use it without much technical experience.

For example, if you use a desktop application for your device and you need to plug in some proxy credentials from Bright Data for the software to work well, then I don't think you would need much experience aside from just going to the dashboard and retrieving what you need.

I would recommend it to other people. It would likely cover most use cases if you  are looking for an IP proxy provider. Bright Data would cover most use cases, so it would be a go-ahead for them. 

I haven't used other products, so depending on what you want to use, I would always recommend something based on my experience and what I've used. For the feature I've used in Bright Data, I would recommend it to someone. And for someone who's just starting, I would have them try it out and see if it works out for them.

Overall, I would rate it a seven out of ten. 

We conduct economic research focused on Israel's tech industry and innovation policy. Our work mainly concerns understanding the Israeli tech sector. We're using data under the BYT initiative, but I am not actively using any scrapers. I only download data already collected and generously provided to us for free.

I use two datasets: LinkedIn profiles for individuals and LinkedIn profiles for companies. While we are exploring other datasets, these are the ones we've been using so far. We analyze this data to support various research projects, such as understanding the characteristics of employees in the tech industry. For example, we investigate how many employees companies are adding or losing, what tech workers study, and what kind of education is most likely to lead to a career in tech, including within different industry subsectors.

There are a lot more advanced options. It looks very impressive.

It would be better if variables like experience or education containing complex data were already organized into sub-variables. For example, the experience variable could be broken down into company name, company ID, job description, start year, and end year. 

As part of the Bright Initiative, since we’re a nonprofit, we are limited in the number of data points we can download. This can occasionally be challenging, but we manage to work around it. In the past, I encountered a few other challenges as well. Initially, I had difficulty transferring the data from Bright Data to our cloud.

One past issue involved date formats. There were many different date formats for the same data points. LinkedIn adjusts the date format based on the user’s browsing location. So, if you're viewing a profile from the US, the date might appear in a month-day-year format, whereas in other regions, it could show up as day-month-year.

When using automatic web crawlers to download data, the data formats can vary depending on the server's IP address running the scraper, not your location.

I received the employment start date variable in about fifty different formats, which I had to standardize. I wrote some code to convert all the time formats into a consistent format.

I have been using Bright Data for two years.

There were no issues with stability.

We have two researchers working on this and some research assistants.

We asked for help understanding some of the data on a few occasions. They were very professional and accommodating. Even though we’re not a paid customer, they genuinely went out of their way to help solve our problems. In a few cases, we asked if they could create new features for us, and they were willing to consider it, which was very nice. Overall, it was an excellent experience, and they quickly replied.

The filters used to retrieve and download the data are quite straightforward. It probably takes about an hour or two to go through the system and fully understand how it works. You can figure it out; it's simple.

For anyone working with data professionally, it's a manageable process. It requires some time investment, but it's not difficult, and someone experienced in data management should be able to get comfortable with it quickly.

LinkedIn profile data is organized in JSON file format. Understanding the structure of this data can be a bit tricky. For example, there's a variable called experience. Under this variable, a text string contains all the information the user has entered about their professional experience, similar to a resume. For some reason, possibly due to LinkedIn changing its format at some point, there are two different formats used for that experience string. To handle this, I wrote a small code that parses the string correctly and creates a table with all the necessary information. However, this took a lot of work—it involved thoroughly understanding the data, writing the code, and testing it to ensure it worked as intended. Some variables, like the country code, are straightforward. Other variables contain text strings that are difficult to decode from the JSON format into something useful. Extracting that information requires more effort.

We are using the free version. It’s expensive. We’re a small nonprofit with limited resources. Our work is focused on research for the public good, so we don’t have a lot of budget to spare.

We hired another company to scrape the data for us. The quality of the data we received was similar to what we had before, but accessing the data without doing it ourselves has been much more useful. When handling it independently, paying someone was much more expensive, and we were limited to datasets of only a few hundred thousand individuals.

We're working with datasets that include millions of profiles. For example, the number of Israeli LinkedIn profiles is about 1.8 million, and that's the scale of data we’re using now. I like the interface and the ability to apply filters to create specific subsets according to my research needs at any time. Downloading the data is straightforward, with many transfer options to various cloud services.

The support is very professional and excellent. If I need a data scrape, I’d consider them the first place to go.

Overall, I rate the solution a ten out of ten.

Currently, I use the Ticketmaster website, where data scraping needs to be done every minute. I do live scraping. If we change something on the Ticketmaster website, like an increase or decrease in ticket fares, we send notifications to customers.

Currently, I use the .NET platform in a crawler, create a script, scrape data from the website, and use Bright Data Proxies.

The solution's most valuable feature is that it allows me to bypass proxy, IP, CAPTCHA, and everything else.

The product's initial setup phase is difficult with servers, making it an area where improvements are required. My company buys servers from Amazon and uses Bright Data Proxies to make things easy for us.

I have been using Bright Data for two years. I am a user of the product.

It is a good and stable solution.

Around ten people in my company use the tool.

I have contacted the solution's technical support team. If the proxy provided doesn't work at a site, we schedule a call with the support team, who guides me through implementing the script.

I have experience with WebSphere Proxy Server, Luminati-Lumiproxy, Smartproxy, and Cloudera's proxy. I have used many proxy tools, but Bright Data Proxies are good and better than the other proxies.

The product's initial setup phase is difficult with servers. I think that the setup with proxies can be done very easily. With Bright Data, we purchase and use the data at the lowest cost.

Currently, I am using a proxy and not a server. I have experience in Bright Data with proxy.

My company chose to work with Bright Data since it is one of the better solutions available in the market.

My company uses Bright Data Proxies and not servers. My company purchases servers from other providers. Bright Data Proxies are better compared to the other proxies. When we use proxies, it is used to define different locations and set on a particular country. Servers are not good for the same purposes as proxies.

It is easy for someone to learn to use the product.

I rate the tool an eight out of ten.

I utilized the platform for my project, which involved scraping data from Amazon and Flipkart, an e-commerce website in India. Specifically, I utilized it as a proxy server to facilitate data scraping from Amazon and used its web scraping API for Flipkart.

The solution provides comprehensive support services, including many tutorials and documentation. In terms of web scraping, it has proven to be the most effective tool.

The solution's proxy selection process needs improvement. Incorporating country-specific proxies would be beneficial.

I have been using Bright Data for approximately four to five months.

There have been occasional stability issues, particularly when my project experienced high request volumes, leading to temporary disruptions. 

Due to my project's relatively low number of users, I encountered minimal scalability challenges while using the product. 

I have relied on the extensive tutorials and documentation available for technical support. Although I have yet to interact with support directly, the resources provided have been comprehensive and helpful.

Setting up the proxy is simple; you only need to configure basic settings and obtain an API link. However, setting up the ID can be somewhat complex, especially for new users. It may be confusing initially, but experience makes the process more manageable.

Compared to other proxy servers, Bright Data's pricing is quite reasonable. It is relatively inexpensive while offering stable and effective performance for its cost.

Amazon tends to block IP addresses used for scraping, which would be a significant obstacle without a proxy. Bright Data's proxy server helps circumvent this issue by forwarding requests from my website to Amazon and sending the retrieved data back to me. 

The tool is relatively user-friendly and straightforward compared to other options. The interface is designed to be intuitive, and with some research and learning from available tutorials, users can navigate it effectively.

I highly recommend the platform, especially its new features like browser tracking capabilities. The basic features, including proxy management and ID setup, are notably faster and offer significant flexibility. Overall, it provides excellent functionality and a unique user experience.

I rate it an eighty out of ten. 

When I worked at a web scraping company, I used Bright Data for the different kinds of proxies it offers, such as data center proxies and mobile proxies.

The solution's most valuable feature is its mobile proxies. Sometimes, systems have a lot of security, and we get blocked if we make a lot of requests. This won't happen if we use mobile proxies.

The solution's initial setup, including the documentation, is not very developer-friendly. It can be improved so that new developers' onboarding to the documentation becomes easier. Bright Data is not easy to use, and its documentation is not very clear. The solution's documentation and initial setup are longer than they should be.

We did not face any stability issues with Bright Data. Once the setup is done, it is very smooth to use. It doesn't break, and we didn't get any bugs.

Bright Data is a scalable solution. If you want to make requests at a large scale, we always have an option for data center proxies. It will provide you with many different proxies that you can use. You can use it for web scraping at scale. It is reliable and won't break or give you errors or issues.

The solution's technical support was good, and we faced no issues. I personally did not get a chance to create a customer ticket and get involved in the process. However, I can say from my team's experience that the support is good. If you have any issues, they will get back to you as soon as possible and help you resolve them.

Bright Data is not an expensive tool compared to its competitors. It offers a wide range of different kinds of proxies. You can decide which one to use according to your needs.

In my previous organization, we scraped many e-commerce websites on a large scale. When we make normal requests to any website or application without using a proxy, we would normally get blocked by CloudFlare or any other security layer they have. We used their proxies to make different requests that prevented us from getting blocked.

For websites that don't have securities, we can use their data center proxies, which are cheaper. We can use that if we know there are no securities and we won't get blocked. However, if there is a chance of getting blocked or not getting the request by the security layer, we would use local proxies or mobile proxies.

I would recommend the solution to other users. New users should first understand their requirements. Bright Data offers many services, and it would be great if they found the right fit for their requirements. Then, they will be able to make the most of the tool.

Overall, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

I use the solution mainly since it helps me with the technical writing about Bright Data. I use it to do some web scraping from eBay for some product names, prices, and customer reviews.

When you are doing web scraping, most scraping libraries don't give you what you and you probably have to use other third-party libraries to maybe navigate against being blocked by the site or maybe solve CAPTCHA, but somehow, the product seems to have all of those features, specifically if you are using a premium version, and not on a trial one. If you are using a premium version, it has all those features. You need to set it up properly, and it does most of the work for you.

I think Bright Data and the tools within its catalog are still unpopular. Earlier, I did not know that Bright Data had a web scraping browser. I know about tools like Playwright, Selenium, and Scrapy. I also know a lot of other web scraping tools, but I had a gig to write about Bright Data and its scraping browser before I knew about it. I think the tool needs to get to a lot of other people to use it properly even before you can even think of improving it because there is no use in improving it if nobody knows about its functionalities.

I have experience using Bright Data.

For the time I used it, I think Everything was pretty smooth, and I was able to do the web scraping for a chunk of data while not having to go back and check if my code was correct or if something happened. Everything just went through, and it was seamless.

What I was doing with the tool was limited, so I wouldn't probably experience some bugs. If I extended the use of the tool to perform other complex jobs, then maybe I would be sure I could figure out the tool's stability.

Stability-wise, I rate the solution a seven out of ten.

The way the tool is set up is scalable because you really don't have to do anything. You write your web scraping code, but immediately, you input some of your required details with the scraping browser, like resolving CAPTCHA issues, the proxy rotation, and all such stuff, while also giving a human simulation, considering that some sites may notice a bot and the tool could be blocked. Web scraping handles a lot of things for you, which, for me, means scalability since I can do a lot more without getting blocked. I think the tool is pretty much scalable. Scalability-wise, I rate the solution an eight out of ten.

I really didn't need to deploy the tool.

I think the pricing is fair, if it is used in a business. The pricing model might need some adjustments if I am using it for a personal purpose, especially if I use it for a month or two.

The proxy would help you sometimes, especially considering that I am in Africa, where, at times, you really don't have access to some sites because of your location, and you get blocked. The proxy feature would probably help you navigate sites without being blocked, and then you can go for web scraping.

It is a really easy tool. All you just need to do is sign up, get your account, and make sure that you've activated the premium version by making the payment. Everything about the dashboard seems intuitive. The tool also has good documentation to help you if you need it.

I don't think the AI feature was incorporated into the tool.

I would recommend the product to anyone who wants to do something around web scraping or data mining. I would also suggest that others use the premium version of the product since most would want to go for a free version.

The tool is not popular. Besides the fact that I had to use it, I don't really know what the other features that might be eye-catching in the tool are. I don't know whether the tool might be a Swiss knife, and I may only probably need to use it as a knife alone.

I rate the tool a seven out of ten.

I work for a company that monitors e-commerce websites. We have a sizeable crawling pipeline to collect and extract data from those sites. Bright Data is currently our most profitable proxy access resource. I also use it for personal projects, freelance jobs, and so on. I also have experience with other proxy providers, but Bright Data is the most user-friendly service for both small and large-scale projects.

We met with some Bright Data people, and they expanded on their features a bit more. They have well-encapsulated browsers that require minimal understanding from the development side. We can use the service without any trouble with just a few lines of code. Their documentation on the website is easy to understand, so anyone with a low understanding of the product can build some interesting projects in a day or two. The Unlocker and the Scrapbook Browser are the most powerful features they provide.

Bright Data need to work daily to improve its features because new data captures are always happening in the market. They are constantly improving their crawler systems to access data more effectively despite targets trying to prevent that access. Bright Data is committed to its customers, always striving to enhance its services and develop new features. They specialize in providing the technology needed to achieve these goals.

I have been using Bright Data for five years.

I rate the solution’s stability a nine out of ten.

The response time was fast, even when we had to run thousands of requests. The content was what we expected to receive. It's very powerful indeed. We started with 4000 requests per hour.

I rate the solution's scalability as nine out of ten.

In almost all cases, Bright Data was able to help fulfill our needs. Even when Bright Data didn't have the required features, we would have a call together to explain our difficulties and problems, and they would work on their side to provide what we needed. Even when problems occurred, they had a fast response time to fix the issue.

The initial setup is very easy. It depends on the use case for each service, but it's straightforward. It's easy to understand. No matter which feature you're trying to use. The documentation is very clear. 

Sometimes, it takes some time for the documentation to synchronize. However, generally, if you go to their website and read the material or even check their GitHub, you can use Docker to simulate the production environment locally. Anyone with basic interaction knowledge can understand and start developing something interesting.

As someone using Bright Data for a single project, pricing can become an issue depending on the volume of usage. However, they are open to negotiating contracts. They even negotiated with the company I currently work for. A few months ago, before meeting with the team at our physical office, Bright Data was very open to minimizing costs and providing more flexibility to help us achieve our goals. If you're misusing it, it will be expensive at some point.

The proxy manager is another feature they have that allows us to monitor how things are going in our systems' day-to-day lives. It's easy to customize based on our needs and service requirements. Their custom services and support are very powerful as well. The management pipeline is easy to understand and configure. If we have any issues, their custom services are fast and easy to help us.

I recommend the solution and appreciate its commitment to its customers. It's very reassuring to know that if you encounter a problem, you won't be left on your own. They are dedicated to understanding your business and helping you achieve the best results for your company and the service.

Overall, I rate the solution a nine out of ten,