Bright Data vs ScraperAPI

Bright Data

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

ScraperAPI

One GET request with a key and a URL returns a page, and the MCP server's 28 tools carry read-only and destructive hints. No status page, OpenAPI file, security.txt or certification was found, and the documented default puts the API key in the URL query string.

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

ScraperAPI

1. Set the client timeout to 70 seconds. The API retries for that long before it returns 500, and a request cancelled earlier is still charged
2. Send the key as the x-sapi-api_key header to keep it out of URLs and logs
3. Pass max_cost on each request, or call /account/urlcost first, because domain and anti-bot surcharges vary from 1 to 75 credits
4. Use output_format=markdown or text to cut response size, and autoparse=true only on supported domains
5. On 429 reduce concurrency to the plan limit (5 on Free, 20 on Hobby). The request is rejected, not queued