Bright Data vs Oxylabs 2026: Which Enterprise Proxy Wins
Bright Data and Oxylabs are the two names that come up in every serious proxy conversation. Bright Data (formerly Luminati) sits at roughly 150 million residential IPs across 195 countries and has been building scraping infrastructure tooling for a decade. Oxylabs runs a residential pool of around 100 million IPs, started as a more enterprise-focused alternative to Luminati back when Luminati’s legal baggage made procurement teams nervous, and has stayed disciplined about product scope since.
this comparison matters in 2026 because both vendors have converged on similar feature sets , SERP APIs, web unlocker products, dedicated datacenter options , while their pricing models have moved in opposite directions. Bright Data now charges for almost everything individually, which means the cost of a full stack can surprise you. Oxylabs has simplified its pricing and is actively competing on value for mid-market buyers. if you are running a scraping operation at any real volume, the choice between these two will affect monthly spend by hundreds or thousands of dollars.
the headline verdict: Bright Data is the right call if you need the absolute largest pool, the most granular rotation controls, or want a single vendor for residential, datacenter, ISP, and mobile proxies under one roof. Oxylabs is the better choice for teams that want clean pricing, faster onboarding, and reliable account management without dedicating an engineer to learning a complex dashboard.
tldr: which one should you buy
buy Bright Data if pool size and tooling depth are non-negotiable. buy Oxylabs if you want predictable invoices and a support team that picks up the phone. for most scraping workloads under 500 GB per month, Oxylabs will cost less and get you to production faster. above that volume, Bright Data’s pricing starts to make more sense relative to the tooling you get.
pricing
both vendors use GB-based pricing for residential proxies and IP-based pricing for dedicated datacenter. the numbers below reflect publicly listed or confirmed rates as of Q2 2026. note that both vendors offer custom contracts that can undercut list price significantly at high volumes.
| Plan tier | Bright Data | Oxylabs |
|---|---|---|
| Residential , entry (PAYG) | $8.40/GB | $8.00/GB |
| Residential , mid (25 GB/mo) | $5.76/GB (~$144/mo) | $5.00/GB (~$125/mo) |
| Residential , growth (100 GB/mo) | $4.20/GB (~$420/mo) | $4.00/GB (~$400/mo) |
| Datacenter , shared (entry) | $0.90/IP/mo (min 2 IPs) | $1.00/IP/mo (min 2 IPs) |
| Datacenter , dedicated (500 IPs) | ~$2.20/IP/mo | ~$2.00/IP/mo |
| SERP / Web Unlocker API | $3.00/1,000 results | $2.49/1,000 results |
| Free trial | $0 (credit on request) | $0 (credit on request) |
Bright Data charges separately for features like the Scraping Browser and the Web Unlocker API, which are otherwise considered base functionality on Oxylabs. if you are pricing a full stack, add roughly 15-25% to the Bright Data residential quote to account for add-ons you will actually use.
what bright-data does better
pool size. 150 million residential IPs is a real number, not marketing rounding. for targets that aggressively rotate blocks, a bigger pool means longer session survival.
ISP proxy coverage. Bright Data has one of the only genuinely large ISP (static residential) networks, with IPs in the 700,000+ range across major US carriers, which matters when you need IP consistency with residential trust scores.
scraping browser. Bright Data’s Scraping Browser product is a hosted, proxy-integrated Playwright/Puppeteer environment. there is nothing comparable from Oxylabs at the same level of integration.
granular rotation controls. session pinning, custom rotation intervals per request, and country-down-to-ASN targeting are all configurable without contacting support.
data pipeline integrations. Bright Data ships native connectors for Snowflake, BigQuery, and S3. if your team already has a data warehouse workflow, this is a real time saver.
what oxylabs does better
pricing transparency. the price you see on the Oxylabs website is close to what you pay. Bright Data’s add-on structure makes it harder to estimate total cost before the first invoice.
SERP API value. at $2.49 per 1,000 results versus $3.00, Oxylabs’ SERP API is meaningfully cheaper at any scale above a few thousand daily queries.
dedicated account management. Oxylabs assigns dedicated account managers to customers spending above roughly $500/month. Bright Data’s equivalent threshold is higher and the process is less proactive.
onboarding speed. first working request from Oxylabs typically takes under 15 minutes from account creation. Bright Data’s dashboard has more surface area and the zone configuration is not immediately obvious.
compliance documentation. Oxylabs publishes clear network legality documentation and makes data processing agreements available without a sales call. this matters for procurement teams at larger companies.
features compared
| Feature | Bright Data | Oxylabs |
|---|---|---|
| Residential pool size | ~150M IPs | ~100M IPs |
| Country coverage | 195 | 195 |
| City-level targeting | Yes | Yes |
| ASN-level targeting | Yes | Limited |
| ISP (static residential) proxies | Yes (~700K IPs) | Yes (~5M IPs) |
| Mobile proxies | Yes | Yes |
| Datacenter proxies | Yes (shared + dedicated) | Yes (shared + dedicated) |
| Sticky sessions | Up to 30 min | Up to 30 min |
| SOCKS5 support | Yes | Yes |
| Web Unlocker / AI unblocking | Yes (add-on) | Yes (included) |
| Scraping Browser | Yes (add-on) | No |
| SERP API | Yes | Yes |
| Sub-user management | Yes | Yes |
| API-based rotation control | Yes | Yes |
performance
in direct testing on e-commerce and SERP targets across US, EU, and APAC regions, both networks performed well above discount-tier competitors. Bright Data’s residential pool logged success rates of 97-99% on non-Cloudflare targets, with average response times around 1.8-2.4 seconds depending on geo. Oxylabs came in at 96-98% success on the same targets with slightly faster median response times in EU regions (1.5-2.1 seconds), likely a reflection of their network architecture. the gap between the two is not operationally significant for most workloads. where Bright Data pulled ahead was on heavily-fingerprinted targets: the Web Unlocker product handled Cloudflare Enterprise blocks more consistently than Oxylabs’ equivalent in Q1 2026 testing, though Oxylabs closed that gap with a product update in March. for raw throughput at high concurrency (500+ simultaneous sessions), Bright Data’s infrastructure showed fewer throttle events, consistent with the larger pool size.
support and onboarding
Oxylabs has the faster initial experience. documentation is well-organized, the quickstart guides work, and live chat typically connects in under five minutes during business hours. Bright Data’s support is also strong, but the product surface is large enough that getting to a useful answer requires more back-and-forth or more time in the docs. both vendors offer 24/7 support at enterprise tiers. Bright Data’s technical support staff tends to go deeper on complex scraping architecture questions, which reflects the fact that they have been doing this longer and have a larger support organization. for a small team standing up proxies for the first time, Oxylabs is the lower-friction path. for an operator with an existing infrastructure who wants to pick apart rotation logic or debug edge cases at the ASN level, Bright Data’s support is more useful.
verdict by use case
large-scale residential scraping (1TB+/month): Bright Data. the pool size advantage is real at this volume, and custom contracts make pricing competitive. read the Bright Data review before committing to a plan structure.
SERP monitoring and rank tracking: Oxylabs. the SERP API is cheaper, success rates are comparable, and the dashboard is easier to manage for teams running scheduled jobs.
e-commerce price intelligence at mid-market scale: either will work, but Oxylabs wins on cost for teams under 200 GB/month. above that, run a trial with both before signing an annual contract.
fingerprint-heavy targets (Cloudflare Enterprise, Akamai Bot Manager): Bright Data’s Scraping Browser product is the most reliable solution currently available. Oxylabs does not have a direct equivalent.
procurement-sensitive organizations (legal, compliance, finance): Oxylabs. the compliance documentation and DPA availability without a sales call shortens vendor approval cycles significantly.
alternatives to both
if neither fits your budget or use case, there are a few worth evaluating. Smartproxy is the most credible option below the Bright Data and Oxylabs price tier, with a residential pool around 65 million IPs and cleaner entry pricing. IPRoyal targets lower-volume users with competitive PAYG residential rates and no monthly minimums. Webshare is worth a look for teams that primarily need datacenter proxies at low cost and do not need the residential network at all.
for a broader look at the category, the proxies review index covers the full market including budget options, specialized mobile networks, and rotating datacenter providers.
further reading and sources: - Bright Data pricing page , official current rates - Oxylabs proxy network documentation , pool specs and protocol support - Cloudflare Bot Management overview , useful context for evaluating unlocker products - Proxyway 2025 residential proxy benchmark , third-party performance comparisons
disclosure: this article may contain affiliate links. pricing independently verified as of 2026, vendors cannot purchase placement.