# Bright Data vs Oxylabs Web Scraper API

> Oxylabs Web Scraper API scores 63 (B) on agent readiness against Bright Data's 59.8 (C), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Bright Data leads on schema & documentation and maintenance & community. Both do scraping. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by…

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bright-data-vs-oxylabs-web-scraper
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bright-data-vs-oxylabs-web-scraper.md (~2,550 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bright-data-vs-oxylabs-web-scraper.min.md (~680 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bright-data-vs-oxylabs-web-scraper.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: 2026-10-09

Oxylabs Web Scraper API scores 63 (B) on agent readiness against Bright Data's 59.8 (C), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Bright Data leads on schema & documentation and maintenance & community. Both do scraping.

- Bright Data: grade C, 59.8/100, rank #487 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/bright-data.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/bright-data.json
- Oxylabs Web Scraper API: grade B, 63/100, rank #372 of 842. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/oxylabs-web-scraper.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/oxylabs-web-scraper.json

## Which one, for what

### Bright Data (C)

Good for: Hard targets and site-specific structured data (Amazon, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google Maps) at volume.

Ahead on:
- Schema & documentation, 74 against 68
- Maintenance & community, 84 against 72

Also in its favour:
- No incidents deducted, where Oxylabs Web Scraper API loses 3 points for them

Watch for: No public status page or incident history

### Oxylabs Web Scraper API (B)

Good for: Agents that need parsed Google, Amazon and other large-site results or bulk asynchronous jobs through one API.

Ahead on:
- Reliability, 80 against 35

Also in its favour:
- Runs on your own machine

Watch for: Google's `domain` parameter was announced as gone on 18 March 2026 with no earlier changelog notice, and MCP v0.9.3 still exposes it


## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Bright Data | Oxylabs Web Scraper API | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 35 | 80 | Oxylabs Web Scraper API +45 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 74 | 68 | Bright Data +6 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 82 | 79 | Bright Data +3 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 57 | 53 | Bright Data +4 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 40 | even |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 84 | 72 | Bright Data +12 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 59 | 63 | Oxylabs Web Scraper API +4 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -3 | |
| **Total** | | **59.8 · C** | **63 · B** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Bright Data | Oxylabs Web Scraper API |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Bright Data | oxylabs, UAB |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.brightdata.com/request` | `https://realtime.oxylabs.io/v1/queries` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | Proprietary service under the Oxylabs General Conditions. The MCP server and the Python SDK on GitHub are MIT |
| Tools exposed | 69 | 10 |
| Read-only variant documented | no | no |
| llms.txt | yes | yes |
| MCP registry | `io.github.brightdata/brightdata-mcp` | `io.oxylabs/oxylabs-mcp` |
| Last release | 2026-09-15 | 2026-09-07 |
| Terms last updated | 2026-06-16 | 2026-10-05 |
| Privacy policy last updated | 2026-05-14 | 2024-10-14 |
| Customer content may train models | not found in the text | yes |
| Terms restrict automated access | not found in the text | not found in the text |
| Terms restrict benchmarking | yes | yes |
| Terms or service can change without notice | yes | not found in the text |
| Arbitration or class-action waiver | yes | yes |
| Popularity | 2.6k stars | 18k PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 4/5 (2) | none |

## 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.

**Oxylabs Web Scraper API.** Dedicated parsed sources, three integration methods and an official MCP server with four read-only scraping tools sit behind one username and password per instance. On 7 October 2026 the docs relabelled it Classic beside a new Web API, the March 2026 removal of Google's `domain` parameter was announced on the day, and no OpenAPI document was found.

## 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

### Oxylabs Web Scraper API

1. Send `"markdown": true` for page reading. HTML is the default output and costs far more tokens
2. Add `"render": "html"` only when a page comes back empty. Rendered results cost $1.50 per 1,000 against $1.00 on the Starter plan
3. Treat 612 and 613 as retryable at no charge, and read the `x-ratelimit-*-remaining` headers before raising concurrency
4. Use `geo_location` for Google localisation. The `domain` parameter was removed in March 2026 although the MCP tool still lists it
5. Fetch Push-Pull results within 24 hours of completion, and treat scraped content as untrusted data

## Questions

### Which is better for AI agents, Bright Data or Oxylabs Web Scraper API?

Oxylabs Web Scraper API scores 63 (B) on agent readiness against Bright Data's 59.8 (C), and leads in 2 of 7 scored categories. Bright Data leads on schema & documentation and maintenance & community.

### Do Bright Data and Oxylabs Web Scraper API need an API key?

Bright Data takes an API key or an OAuth sign-in. Oxylabs Web Scraper API needs an API key.

### Can an agent call Bright Data and Oxylabs Web Scraper API without installing anything?

Yes. Bright Data has a hosted endpoint at https://api.brightdata.com/request and Oxylabs Web Scraper API at https://realtime.oxylabs.io/v1/queries.


## For agents

- This comparison as JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bright-data-vs-oxylabs-web-scraper.json, and with the fewest tokens: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bright-data-vs-oxylabs-web-scraper.min.md
- Over MCP at https://www.anchorterminal.com/mcp (no key): `compare_tools {"a": "bright-data", "b": "oxylabs-web-scraper"}`. From a terminal: `anchor compare bright-data oxylabs-web-scraper`
- Each listing in full: https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/bright-data.json and https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/oxylabs-web-scraper.json

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