Bright Data Full Review - Comparisons, Features, Pricing
| Proxycurl | Bright Data's Professional Social Network Scraper |
|---|---|
| API rate limit of 300 requests/minute; or 432,000 profiles / day). Rate limit can be increased in an Enterprise Plan. | No rate limit |
| Profile is fresh | Profile is fresh |
| Has skills and contact data | No skills and contact data |
| Strong developer API documentation | Has Web Interface UI |
| $0.01 / profile (as of 10th April 2022) | $0.05/ profile |
| 99% API success rate | 80% API success rate |
Most major industry players who employes Professional Social Network at scale understand the implications of the HiQ VS Professional Social Network lawsuit that scraping public Professional Social Network profiles is legal. The US Appeals court further reaffirmed this fact on 22nd May 2022.
So if you're a venture-funded company or a publicly listed company, you should be sticking to scraping and utilizing public Professional Social Network data unless you want to be sued. And there are just a few vendors that scrape public Professional Social Network profiles.
There is Proxycurl, and there is Bright Data. These are the only two vendors I am aware of that provide the capability to scrape a public Professional Social Network profile in real-time. Given that both Proxycurl and Bright Data work exclusively with public Professional Social Network profiles, both vendors:
- Are GDPR and CCPA compliant
- Do not require you to bring your Professional Social Network accounts
- Will return you data that is legally tested
While both Proxycurl and Bright Data return the same category of data, there are fundamental differences between the two services.
Core Product Differences
Bright Data is a residential proxy provider.
Proxycurl is an enrichment API that fetches fresh data about people and companies from public data sources such as Professional Social Network. Professional Social Network Profile scraping is just one of the capabilities that Proxycurl offers.
And there lies the fundament differences between Bright Data and Proxycurl -- Bright Data sells proxies while Proxycurl sells an Enrichment API.
| Proxycurl | Bright Data's Professional Social Network Scraper |
|---|---|
| API to enrich data on people and companies | Residential IP address rental |
Pricing
Bright Data's core business is in renting residential IP addresses. Bright Data figured they could charge more if they built a web crawler service on top of their network of residential IP addresses. And that is exactly what they did with their Data Collector product which features a Professional Social Network Scraper. Bright Data's Professional Social Network Scraper is priced at $0.05 / Professional Social Network profile. Bright Data requires a subscription plan.
Proxycurl pulls a fresh public Professional Social Network Profile for $0.01 / profile. Proxycurl has a pay-as-you-go business model.
| Proxycurl | Bright Data's Professional Social Network Scraper |
|---|---|
| $0.01 / profile | $0.05 / profile |
| Pay-as-you-go | Requires subscription |
Data Completeness
The most significant difference between Bright Data and Proxycurl is the exhaustiveness of the data returned.
Both Proxycurl and Bright Data have the same base public Professional Social Network profile data because both vendors scrape the same source.
However, Proxycurl has more data. Proxycurl enriches profiles beyond public Professional Social Network profile data. By matching data from multiple data sources, Proxycurl offers the following extra data for profiles on people:
- Inferred salary
- Social media account IDs (Github/Facebook/Twitter)
- Gender
- Birth Date
- Skills
- Contact info (Personal emails and mobile numbers)
| Proxycurl | Bright Data's Professional Social Network Scraper |
|---|---|
| Base Public Professional Social Network Profile Data + Salary + Social media accounts + Gender + Skills + Contact info + Birth Date | Base Public Professional Social Network Profile Data |
Ease Of Use
In general, both products are near equivalent because they target the same type of users that are software engineers.
Proxycurl has a well-written API documentation. So, developers who are comfortable with code would prefer Proxycurl.
Bright Data's Data Collector has a user interface to toy around with the tooling, so that is a win for developers who prefer having a web interface to play with the tool before writing code.
| Proxycurl | Bright Data's Professional Social Network Scraper |
|---|---|
| Has a well-written API documentation | Has a web interface for testing the product |
API Availability
The other significant difference between Proxycurl and Bright Data is the API performance. Specifically on the success rate of the API. Proxycurl has an API success of 99+%. Bright Data has a success rate of 80%.
However, Bright Data has no rate limit. In contrast, Proxycurl has a rate limit of 300 requests/minute.
| Proxycurl | Bright Data's Professional Social Network Scraper |
|---|---|
| 99+% API success rate | 80% API success rate |
| Rate limit of 300 requests/minute | No rate limit |
Summary: Proxycurl API VS Bright Data's Professional Social Network Profile Scraper
Use Proxycurl if your primary use-case is in Professional Social Network profile enrichment, mainly because it is cheaper, with no need for a subscription commitment, and it returns many more helpful data points beyond Professional Social Network profile data.
Use Bright Data if you are already in their ecosystem and crawling Professional Social Network is just one segment of your overall crawling requirements.