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cdpfleet vs Bright Data Browser API
A fleet of real browsers you drive with Playwright, paid per browser-second, against Bright Data's Browser API (formerly Scraping Browser): a managed unblocking Chrome paid per GB. Prices, limits and features side by side.
Bright Data's Browser API (formerly Scraping Browser) is a managed Chrome in Bright Data's cloud built for unblocking: you attach Puppeteer, Playwright over CDP or Selenium with your zone's credentials, and Bright Data picks the proxy (residential by default), manages the fingerprint and headers, solves CAPTCHAs and retries. You pay for traffic only, by the GB — browser time is free — and a session is limited to one domain and 60 minutes. This page compares the Browser API alone, not Bright Data's other products. cdpfleet is a fleet of 12 real desktop browsers launched with one HTTPS call and driven with the Playwright protocol from five languages: you choose the browser and the proxy, and pay per browser-second.
| cdpfleet | Bright Data Browser API | |
|---|---|---|
| Browsers | 12 — Google Chrome, Microsoft Edge, Brave, Opera, Naver Whale, Yandex Browser, Chromium, Patchright, Rebrowser, Camoufox, Firefox, WebKit, plus hardware Android phones and iOS WebView in early access. Chrome with stable, beta and dev channels and pinned previous majors. | One: "a managed, cloud Chrome". No other engine or version choice documented; device emulation through a custom CDP command (Emulation.setDevice). |
| How you connect | Playwright protocol: connect(wsUrl) with the matching Playwright client from Node.js, Python, Java, C# or Go — all contexts you like. Or "cdp": true on Chromium-based browsers for Puppeteer and connectOverCDP (CDP & Puppeteer). | CDP at wss://brd.superproxy.io:9222 with the zone username and password in the URL — Puppeteer connect, Playwright connectOverCDP — or Selenium WebDriver on port 9515. Native support listed for Node.js, Python, Java and C#; Go through community libraries (playwright-go, chromedp). No REST call to start a session, and "do not add extra or custom connection options". |
| Session length | Up to 24 h (shared threads: also capped by your remaining daily minutes). Idle timeout 120 s by default, up to 10 min on shared threads and 24 h on dedicated. Any number of sites per session. | At most 60 minutes. A session ends after 5 minutes with no CDP command or 5 minutes without network activity, and your client must connect within 30 s. One domain per session: navigating to another domain fails with navigate_domains_limit — open a new session per domain. |
| Metering | Per second, as thread-seconds: a headless browser is 1 thread, headful 2. Billing stops when the WebSocket closes. Traffic through your own proxies is free. Prices per thread are on the pricing page. | Traffic only — "there is no cost for instances or time". $8/GB pay as you go, the same in every country; premium domains (a changing list, opt-in per zone) cost more per GB. Bright Data recommends a 2-minute navigation timeout because unlocking some pages takes "a minute or two". |
| Plans | Free Community plan (invite-only for now): 2 threads, 60 browser-minutes per thread a day, 15-minute sessions, proxies included. Paid from $5.00/month (5 shared threads, 60–480 browser-minutes a day per thread); dedicated threads for 24/7 use at $5.00/thread/month. Pricing. | Free tier: 5,000 credits a month, drawn at 5 credits per MB — about 1 GB of Browser API traffic — no card. Pay as you go $8/GB, no commitment. Scale $499/month with 71 GB ($7/GB), $999 with 166 GB ($6/GB) or $1,999 with 399 GB ($5/GB — the "from $5/GB" in the site menu). Enterprise custom: SLA, SSO and audit logs. A first deposit of $500 or more is matched up to $500. |
| Concurrency | The threads you buy: 5 to 10,000 (more on request), 2 on the free Community plan; each session takes 1–4 threads by type. | Unlimited concurrent sessions on pay as you go and Scale. |
| Proxies | Bring your own HTTP, HTTPS or SOCKS5 proxies — single, pool, or per-host rules (proxy_rules) — swap a running session's proxy live, see traffic per destination host and per rule; traffic through them is free. Or the cdpfleet residential proxy: 4 tiers from $0.50 to $5/GB from one prepaid balance ($5 free credit), mixable per host — e.g. Tier 4 for CDN assets, Tier 1 for pages. A launch without a proxy uses the free Community proxy — best effort, no guarantees. | Built in and chosen for you: residential by default, datacenter for some domains that require KYC, rotated automatically. Optional country (-country-xx in the username, "generally not recommended"), state or city, or a latitude/longitude radius (Proxy.setLocation); the same peer across sessions with Proxy.useSession. Using your own proxy isn't documented. |
| Stealth | Real browsers by default (genuine Chrome, Edge, Brave…), headful by default, and three stealth builds — Patchright, Rebrowser, Camoufox — on every plan. You decide what the site sees. | Unblocking is the product: fingerprint and header management, CAPTCHA solving on by default (can be switched off per zone, or driven with Captcha.solve), automatic retries; ad and cookie-banner blocking through custom CDP commands. |
| What you may do | Log in, type passwords, set headers and cookies, visit as many domains as you like in one session — within the terms. | Password entry is disabled by default "to prevent any attempts to log in to accounts"; an exception needs KYC and a request to compliance. Before KYC, only pages the site's robots.txt allows (brob); some targets are restricted by compliance rules (brul). Changing headers or cookies needs a zone setting (custom_headers). |
| Watching a session | Live view with human takeover — Watch / Take control in the dashboard, or a link from the API — and Launch interactive: open any browser on a start page straight into live view from the dashboard's code generator (start_url over the API). Session recordings as MP4 (480p free, 720p or 1080p on a plan), and JPEG frames to your code with page.screencast. | Chrome DevTools debugger attached to a live session, from the control panel or a Page.inspect link your script prints; screenshots from your code; session logs through an API. No recording or replay documented. |
| Persistence | Persistent profiles keep cookies, local storage and IndexedDB between sessions (paid plans); Playwright storageState; keep_alive to reconnect to the same browser on dedicated threads. | No browser profiles documented: each session starts fresh and covers one domain. Proxy.useSession keeps the same IP across sessions; cookies you restore yourself need the custom headers and cookies setting. |
| Agent tooling | A hosted MCP server at cdpfleet.com/mcp — add it in Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini and sign in with OAuth — or npx cdpfleet-mcp; SDKs for Node.js, Python and Go; Playwright works with any agent framework or LLM. | A hosted MCP server, a CLI and agent skills for coding agents; a Python SDK that covers the Browser API next to Bright Data's scrapers. |
| Examples | 58 cases run on production in five languages, all on GitHub with their output. | Code examples for Puppeteer, Playwright and Selenium in Node.js, Python and C# (CAPTCHA, bandwidth saving), and starter projects on GitHub. |
Bright Data Browser API facts from its public pricing page and documentation, checked on 17 October 2026; list prices in USD. Tell us if something is out of date.
Which one, when
Pick Bright Data Browser API if…
- You want unblocking handled for you — proxy choice, fingerprints, CAPTCHA solving and retries — and only write the scraping logic.
- Your pages are light and your sessions long or idle: you pay per GB, not for browser time.
- You need very many sessions at once without planning capacity, or Bright Data's other data products from the same account.
Pick cdpfleet if…
- The site must see a specific real browser or version — Chrome channels, Edge, Brave, Opera, Firefox, WebKit, Camoufox — or a phone.
- You log in to accounts, set your own headers and cookies, or visit several domains in one session.
- You bring your own proxies, free of traffic charges, or want residential traffic from $0.50/GB — useful on heavy pages, where per-GB pricing adds up.
- Sessions run longer than an hour, keep profiles between runs, or are recorded for later review.
- You want to start free — the Community plan includes proxies — and try a browser in live view before writing any code.
Try it
The quickstart is one HTTPS call and five lines of Playwright; the code builder writes the launch for any browser and option set in your language.
Sources
- Bright Data Browser API pricing
- Browser API introduction
- Browser API configuration (connecting Puppeteer, Playwright, Selenium)
- Browser API FAQs (pricing, password typing, proxies, one domain per session)
- Browser API error codes (session limits, KYC restrictions)
- Browser API custom CDP functions (CAPTCHA, devices, sessions, downloads)
- Browser API geolocation targeting
- Browser API premium domains
- Browser API debugger (troubleshooting)
- Bright Data docs index for agents (MCP, CLI, SDK)