# Bright Data vs Olostep

> Olostep has a score of 63.1 (B) against Bright Data's 60.1 (C). Both do scraping. The largest gap is security & auth, 29 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bright-data-vs-olostep
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bright-data-vs-olostep.md (~1,700 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bright-data-vs-olostep.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bright-data-vs-olostep.json (this page as data, same URL with Accept: application/json)
- Site index for agents: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms.txt (full text: https://www.anchorterminal.com/llms-full.txt)
- API: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/index.json
- Updated: 2026-10-05

Olostep has a score of 63.1 (B) against Bright Data's 60.1 (C). Both do scraping. The largest gap is security & auth, 29 points.

- Bright Data: grade C, 60.1/100, rank #254 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/bright-data.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/bright-data.json
- Olostep: grade B, 63.1/100, rank #210 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/olostep.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/olostep.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Bright Data for security & auth (+29), maintenance & community (+26).

Pick Olostep for reliability (+25), schema & documentation (+10), agent ergonomics (+5), payments & pricing (+25).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Bright Data | Olostep | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 35 | 60 | Olostep +25 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 74 | 84 | Olostep +10 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 82 | 87 | Olostep +5 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 57 | 28 | Bright Data +29 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 65 | Olostep +25 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 84 | 58 | Bright Data +26 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 62 | 60 | Bright Data +2 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | 0 | |
| **Total** | | **60.1 · C** | **63.1 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Bright Data | Olostep |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Bright Data | Olostep Technologies, Inc. |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.brightdata.com/request` | `https://api.olostep.com` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Freemium |
| x402 | no | payer tooling only |
| Licence | none | MIT |
| Tools exposed | 69 | 11 |
| Context cost (tools/list) | n/a | n/a |
| p95 latency | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Availability (30d) | not measured yet | not measured yet |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `io.github.brightdata/brightdata-mcp` | `io.github.olostep/olostep-mcp-server` |
| Last release | 2026-09-15 | 2026-07-15 |
| Popularity | 2.6k stars | 24 stars, 8.9k npm/wk, 2k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 4/5 (2) | 3.5/5 (2) |

## Verdicts

**Bright Data.** Pay only for successful requests, $1.50 per 1,000 on Web Unlocker and SERP. No public status page or incident history.

**Olostep.** OpenAPI 3.0.3 for every endpoint and a structured error body. The x402 challenge came back with no payment requirements in our probe.

## Before you call either

### Bright Data

1. Connect with OAuth or keep the `?token=` URL out of logs and shared configs
2. Add `groups=` or `tools=` to the MCP URL only for the extractors you need. The full set is 69 tools
3. Retry `reject_block` errors, since each attempt uses a different peer. Certificate and DNS errors fail the same way twice
4. Back off on a 429 `sr_rate_limit`. Bright Data throttles a target whose success rate drops
5. Use the batch tools for up to 10 searches or scrapes in one call

### Olostep

1. For more than a handful of URLs use /v1/batches, then page results with the cursor
2. Pass `storage.expires_in` if you need results after about 7 days
3. Don't ask for json output without a `parser` or an `llm_extract` schema
4. Hosted MCP wants `Authorization: Bearer`, stdio wants OLOSTEP_API_KEY. Mixing them up shows 0 tools
5. Check the 402 body before paying over x402. Our probe got an empty one

## Other comparisons with Bright Data or Olostep

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