Bright Data's proxy network spans 400M+ IPs across 195 countries. Its SERP API covers Google, Bing, Yandex, and Baidu. The enterprise SLA is genuine. So are the $499/month minimums, billed separately per product, and the multi-zone setup required before a first request goes out. For teams with a dedicated data engineering budget and petabyte-scale requirements, it's the right tool. For everyone else, there are better-value options.

This article covers two distinct use cases Bright Data serves: web scraping (extracting data from URLs) and search/SERP (querying search engines programmatically). Not every alternative covers both, and that matters for how you evaluate them.

Bright Data is one of the largest commercial web data platforms on the market. It started in 2014 as Luminati Networks, a proxy provider. By 2021 it had rebranded and grown into a full data infrastructure company. Today it serves enterprises like Deloitte, McDonald's, Nokia, Pfizer, and Oxford University.

It covers three main product layers:

• Proxy infrastructure: 400M+ monthly residential IPs across 195 countries, plus datacenter and ISP networks
• Web Access APIs: Web Scraper API, Scraping Browser (Puppeteer and Playwright compatible), and Web Unlocker for anti-bot bypass
• SERP API: real-time search results from Google, Bing, Yandex, and Baidu with city-level geo-targeting

Each product has separate pricing and billing. SERP API starts at $499/month for 380K results. Web Scraper API starts at $499/month for 384K records.

Firecrawl is an API-first web data platform built for developers and AI teams. It consolidates scraping, search, crawling, and browser interaction into one API behind a single key. It's open source (113K+ GitHub stars), SOC 2 Type II certified, and used in production by teams at Shopify, Apple, Canva, and Replit.

With Bright Data you configure zones, pick a product, set up separate billing, then make your first request. With Firecrawl you paste an API key and go.

For scraping:

• /scrape: single page to markdown + structured JSON, 1 credit per page
• /crawl: multi-page site crawl with depth and filter controls, including list crawling across paginated pages
• /interact: browser automation actions (click, fill, navigate), similar to Bright Data's Scraping Browser but in the same API
• /agent: autonomous extraction from complex sites via natural language

For search:

• /search: real-time web search results with full page content in one call
• Returns LLM-ready markdown, no separate scrape step required

CLI and agent onboarding:

• Install the Firecrawl CLI: npm install -g firecrawl-cli
• AI coding agents (Claude Code, OpenCode) can auto-discover and configure it: npx -y firecrawl-cli@latest init --all
• Run scrapes, searches, and agent tasks from the terminal: firecrawl search "query" or firecrawl agent "Find top 5 AI startups" --wait

Pricing (As of April 2026)

• Free: 500 credits, no credit card required
• Hobby: ~$16/month, 3,000 credits/month
• Standard: ~$83/month, 100,000 credits/month
• Growth: $399/month, 500,000 credits/month
• Scale: $599/month, 1,000,000 credits/month

Start for free on Firecrawl. No credit card required.

Choose Firecrawl when you're building AI apps, RAG pipelines, or LLM workflows and want scraping and search behind a single key without managing separate products or billing.

For a direct feature-by-feature comparison, see Firecrawl vs. Bright Data.

ScrapingBee is a REST API that handles proxy rotation, CAPTCHA solving, and JavaScript rendering. The Google Search API is bundled in at every tier, which is the reason most teams pick it over rolling their own SERP solution.

Here's a quick breakdown of what ScrapingBee offers as a Bright Data alternative:

For scraping:

• Automatic proxy rotation and CAPTCHA handling
• JavaScript rendering via headless Chrome
• Screenshots, CSS selector extraction, and custom JS execution

For search:

• Google Search API returns organic results, ads, and related searches as structured data
• 15 credits per standard search request; 10 credits for light requests

Pricing (As of April 2026)

• Free: 1,000 API calls, no credit card
• Freelance: $49/month, 250,000 credits, 10 concurrent
• Startup: $99/month, 1,000,000 credits, 50 concurrent
• Business: $249/month, 3,000,000 credits, 100 concurrent
• Business+: $599/month, 8,000,000 credits, 200 concurrent

One thing to watch. Credit costs stack up quickly on JavaScript-heavy targets. Stealth Proxy with JS rendering costs 75 credits per request, versus 1 for a basic call. That's a 75x multiplier. A Capterra reviewer (Rob B., Jan 2024) put it plainly: "the jump in cost to utilise premium proxies and javascript rendering is quite steep (25x)."

A Proxyway December 2025 benchmark found success rates dropped from 84.47% at 2 requests/second to 72.98% at 10 requests/second under load. ScrapingBee was also acquired by Oxylabs in June 2025.

Choose ScrapingBee when you need a simple REST scraping API and Google Search is your only SERP source. It's a significant step down in cost from Bright Data's $499/month SERP minimum.

Apify is a cloud platform built around a marketplace of 26,000+ pre-built scrapers called Actors. Each Actor targets a specific site or use case: Amazon, LinkedIn, Instagram, Google Maps, TikTok, and hundreds more. If your target site has an Actor, you configure it in the UI and run it — no scraper to build or maintain.

The platform also ships Crawlee, an open-source JS/Python SDK for building custom scrapers, with 23,000+ GitHub stars. Customers include T-Mobile, Microsoft, Accenture, the European Commission, and Groupon.

For scraping:

• 26,000+ Actors for specific sites and use cases
• Full API access on all paid plans
• Crawlee SDK for building custom scrapers
• Cloud infrastructure for scheduling and monitoring

For search:

• No dedicated SERP API product
• Google Search results available via a marketplace Actor (community-maintained)

Pricing (As of April 2026)

• Free: $5 platform credit included
• Starter: $29/month (compute + storage + proxy from one credit pool)
• Scale: $199/month
• Business: $999/month

Note: Apify's credit model bundles compute, actor usage, and proxy bandwidth together. Test on the free tier before committing to predict your costs accurately. Capterra reviewer Dragos M. (April 2026) captured the core issue: "Estimating the cost of a new Actor run before executing it is largely guesswork." The plan structure also jumps directly from $199/month (Scale) to $999/month (Business) with no middle option.

For a full comparison, see Firecrawl vs. Apify.

Choose Apify when you need to scrape a specific site without building from scratch, and an Actor already exists for it. Or when you want full code control via the Crawlee SDK.

Scrape.do charges only for successful requests. Failed calls cost nothing. It runs 110M proxies, processes 10B+ requests per month, and holds a Capterra Best Customer Support badge. At $29/month it's the cheapest paid option here by a significant margin.

The product is deliberately narrow. One REST endpoint, reliable HTTP scraping, no infrastructure to manage.

For scraping:

• WAF bypass, geo-targeting (160+ countries), sticky sessions
• JavaScript rendering and full browser support
• Unlimited bandwidth on all plans
• Only charges for successful API calls, failed requests are free

For search:

• Google Search API returns SERP results, AI Overviews, and AI Mode responses as structured JSON
• Google Trends API for search interest and trending topics
• Google only, no multi-engine support

Pricing (As of April 2026)

• Free: 1,000 credits, all features unlocked, no credit card
• Hobby: $29/month, 250,000 credits, 10 concurrent
• Pro: $99/month, 1,250,000 credits, 50 concurrent
• Business: $249/month, 3,500,000 credits, 100 concurrent
• Advanced: $699/month, 10,000,000 credits, 200 concurrent, custom SLA

One thing to watch. Scrape.do's Proxies and Scraping Browser products are both listed as "Coming Soon" as of April 2026. Credits are allocated monthly and do not roll over to the next billing period. The platform also has no SOC 2 certification listed anywhere on the site. If your team has compliance requirements or needs advanced browser automation, verify current status before committing.

Choose Scrape.do when budget is the primary constraint. The success-only billing model removes the most common source of wasted spend on scraping APIs, and the free tier includes all features.

If you're building AI or LLM workflows, Firecrawl removes the most friction: unified API, markdown output by default, free tier to start. If you need Google SERP at low to mid volume without a $499/month floor, ScrapingBee or Scrape.do both get you there. For AI-native web search for AI agents with richer context, see our comparison of dedicated search APIs. If your target sites have Apify Actors already, use them — no scraper to build.

All four tools offer free tiers or trials. Test on your actual target sites — success rates and cost-per-result vary enough that a quick test beats any pricing page estimate. See Firecrawl pricing if you want to start there.

Here's a quick summary of the free plans offered by the popular Bright Data alternatives:

• Firecrawl: Try the Playground, no signup required
• ScrapingBee: 1,000 free API calls, no credit card
• Apify: Free tier with $5 platform credit
• Scrape.do: 1,000 free credits, all features included