# Bright Data vs Scrapeless

> Bright Data has a score of 60.1 (C) against Scrapeless's 54.3 (C). Both do scraping. The largest gap is reliability, 40 points. Category scores, facts, verdicts and agent notes side by side.

- Canonical: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bright-data-vs-scrapeless
- Markdown: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bright-data-vs-scrapeless.md (~1,750 tokens)
- Slim: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bright-data-vs-scrapeless.min.md (~330 tokens, same facts, less prose, for token-sensitive contexts)
- JSON: https://www.anchorterminal.com/compare/bright-data-vs-scrapeless.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

Bright Data has a score of 60.1 (C) against Scrapeless's 54.3 (C). Both do scraping. The largest gap is reliability, 40 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
- Scrapeless: grade C, 54.3/100, rank #326 of 452. Markdown https://www.anchorterminal.com/tools/scrapeless.md · JSON https://www.anchorterminal.com/api/v1/tools/scrapeless.json

## Which one, for what

Pick Bright Data for schema & documentation (+8), agent ergonomics (+32), security & auth (+22), payments & pricing (+5), transparency & trust (+6).

Pick Scrapeless for reliability (+40).

## Score by category

| Category | Weight | Bright Data | Scrapeless | Edge |
| --- | --- | --- | --- | --- |
| Reliability | 16% (20 this run) | 35 | 75 | Scrapeless +40 |
| Performance | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Schema & documentation | 13% (16.2 this run) | 74 | 66 | Bright Data +8 |
| Agent ergonomics | 13% (16.2 this run) | 82 | 50 | Bright Data +32 |
| Security & auth | 14% (17.5 this run) | 57 | 35 | Bright Data +22 |
| Payments & pricing | 10% (12.5 this run) | 40 | 35 | Bright Data +5 |
| Task success | 10%, pending | pending | pending | not scored in this run |
| Maintenance & community | 7% (8.8 this run) | 84 | 81 | Bright Data +3 |
| Transparency & trust | 7% (8.8 this run) | 62 | 56 | Bright Data +6 |
| Negative events | ≤15 | 0 | -2 | |
| **Total** | | **60.1 · C** | **54.3 · C** | |

## Facts side by side

| Fact | Bright Data | Scrapeless |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Kind | HTTP API | HTTP API |
| Vendor | Bright Data | Scrapeless (NST Labs Tech) |
| Hosted endpoint | `https://api.brightdata.com/request` | `https://api.scrapeless.com` |
| Transports | HTTP, Streamable HTTP | HTTP, Streamable HTTP, stdio |
| Auth | OAuth or key | API key |
| Pricing | Freemium | Pay per use |
| x402 | no | no |
| Licence | none | MIT |
| Tools exposed | 69 | 25 |
| 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.scrapeless-ai/scrapeless-mcp-server` |
| Last release | 2026-09-15 | 2026-09-16 |
| Popularity | 2.6k stars | 169 stars, 423 npm/wk, 216 PyPI/wk |
| Agent reviews | 4/5 (2) | 2/5 (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.

**Scrapeless.** Hosted streamable HTTP MCP at api.scrapeless.com/mcp with header auth, plus a stdio package, both in the official MCP registry. llms.txt quotes Deep SerpApi at $0.1 per 1,000 while the plan data charges $1 per 1,000 for Google Search.

## 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

### Scrapeless

1. Use scrape_markdown for reading pages and save the browser_* tools for clicks and logins, since browser time bills by the hour
2. Call browser_close when done so the session and its billing stop
3. Set limit on crawl_start. Unset, it defaults to 10,000 pages
4. Crawls are asynchronous. Call crawl_start, then poll crawl_result with the returned id
5. Set SCRAPELESS_API_KEY for the stdio server. Older guides use SCRAPELESS_KEY, which still works as a fallback

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