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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 — and its Web Unlocker, Fetch, SERP and Scraper APIs against cdpfleet Functions. 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 with cdpfleet sessions, and Bright Data's scraping APIs — Web Unlocker, Fetch (formerly Crawl), SERP and the pre-built scrapers — with cdpfleet [Functions](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/functions), [jobs](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/jobs) and [monitors](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/monitors); its proxy networks and datasets are left out. 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](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/cdp)). | 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](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/pricing). | 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. A `Browser.getBandwidth` CDP command reports a session's traffic so far. Bright Data recommends a 2-minute navigation timeout because unlocking some pages takes "a minute or two". |
| Plans | Free [Community plan](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/pricing#community): 2 threads, 60 browser-minutes per thread a day, 15-minute sessions, proxies included. Paid from $7.50/month (5 shared threads, 60–480 browser-minutes a day per thread); dedicated threads for 24/7 use at $8.50/thread/month. [Pricing](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/pricing). | Free tier: 5,000 credits a month, shared with Bright Data's scraping APIs and drawn at 5 credits per MB — about 1 GB of Browser API traffic — no card (the pricing page and docs say so; Bright Data's site index says the Browser API is "not in the free tier"). Pay as you go $8/GB, no commitment. Scale $499/month with 71 GB (about $7/GB). Enterprise custom: premium SLA, SSO and audit logs, an account manager. A first deposit of $500 or more is matched up to $500. The site index still says "from $5/GB", a rate the pricing page doesn't list. |
| 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; a target that gets too many requests at once answers with `bucket_rate_limit`. |
| 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](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/proxies#residential): 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](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/proxies#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 or the EU (`-country-xx` in the username, "generally not recommended"), 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](https://cdpfleet.com/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](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/live-view#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](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/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](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/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. |
| Scraping in one call | [Functions](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/functions): screenshot, PDF, Markdown, [scrape](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/functions/scrape) (HTML, Markdown, text, links, screenshot, XHR calls, cookies; `wait_for`, `actions`, `extract` by CSS selector), [map](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/functions/map), [geo compare](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/functions/geo) and a [live tab](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/functions/livetab) — in a pooled browser, or in a browser and device of your choice on paid plans. Billed like a session (one thread while the call runs, one per country for geo compare); the Community proxy and your own proxies cost nothing extra. Free tools at [/functions](https://cdpfleet.com/functions). | Web Unlocker API (`POST api.brightdata.com/request` with a zone, or as a proxy): one URL in, the page out as HTML, Markdown (`data_format: markdown`) or a PNG screenshot, with proxies, fingerprints, CAPTCHA solving and retries handled; `render` forces a browser, `x-unblock-expect` waits for an element or text, plus a country or a mobile user agent. No click or type steps — those take a Browser API session. Only successful requests are billed, unless custom headers or cookies are switched on (cookies may not be used to log in): $1.50 per 1,000 pay as you go, Scale $499/month with 383,000 (then $1.30 per 1,000). The Fetch API (formerly Crawl API) returns one record per URL with Markdown, text, HTML and JSON-LD, optionally from a country, at $1.50 per 1,000 records pay as you go; the MCP docs say it doesn't render JavaScript. |
| Crawling and bulk | [Jobs](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/jobs) on paid plans: batch (any number of URLs), crawl and map, with no size or time limit — runs continue past the 24-hour session limit by themselves; results as JSON lines or a zip archive, kept 14 days; stop and resume; signed webhooks. Plus [watch](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/jobs#watch) (live XHR/WebSocket/DOM events), [warmup](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/jobs#warmup) and [monitors](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/monitors) (scheduled change detection with diffs). | No crawl or map endpoint in the docs: the Fetch API takes a list of URLs — any number per asynchronous job, up to 1 GB of input — and doesn't follow links, though the Crawl API product page still promises "the full website content" from a root URL and maps of "entire site structures in one request". Jobs deliver to a webhook, S3, GCS, Azure or Snowflake, or by download (snapshots kept 30 days); Web Unlocker takes asynchronous requests with a webhook. Schedules — hourly, daily, weekly or custom — are a Scraper Studio feature for custom scrapers; the docs' daily price monitor runs from GitHub Actions. No change detection. |
| Screenshots and PDFs | Screenshot (PNG/JPEG, viewport or full page) and PDF Functions — a text PDF from a Chromium-based browser. | Web Unlocker returns a PNG screenshot (`data_format: screenshot`); in a Browser API session, your own code's `page.screenshot()`, and the MCP server's browser tools take screenshots (full page optional). No PDF output: a PDF the site serves can be saved in a session through the `Download` CDP domain. |
| Search and site APIs | None — no search-engine or per-site APIs; a [scrape](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/functions/scrape) or a session reads whatever page you point it at. | SERP API: Google, Bing, Yandex and DuckDuckGo results as JSON, Markdown or HTML, with city or ZIP targeting and desktop or mobile, only successful requests billed — $1.50 per 1,000 pay as you go, Scale $499/month with 380,000 (then $1.30). Scraper API: pre-built scrapers for thousands of sites (LinkedIn, Amazon, Instagram, TikTok, Google Maps, ChatGPT and more) returning structured records, $1.50 per 1,000 records pay as you go, Scale $499/month with 384,000; Scraper Studio builds a custom scraper from a prompt. Business Search finds people and companies in a daily-refreshed index at $2–$3 per 1,000 searches. |
| Agent tooling | A hosted [MCP server](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/mcp/setup) at cdpfleet.com/mcp — add it in Claude, ChatGPT or Gemini and sign in with OAuth — or `npx cdpfleet-mcp`; [SDKs](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/sdk) for Node.js, Python and Go. | A hosted MCP server (`mcp.brightdata.com`, OAuth 2.1 or an API token; also local) with 30 tools — search, pages as Markdown through the Fetch API, the pre-built scrapers, dataset search, ChatGPT and Perplexity answers, and a Browser API session driven by ARIA refs (navigate, click, type, fill forms, screenshot); its requests come out of the same 5,000 free credits a month. A CLI (`brightdata` or `bdata`) to scrape, search, run scrapers and drive a remote browser; agent skills (`npx skills add brightdata/skills`); Python and JavaScript SDKs, the Python one also handing out Browser API connection URLs. An agent can open an account itself with a code emailed to the user. |
| Examples | [89 cases](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/cases) run on production in five languages, all on [GitHub](https://github.com/cdpfleet/cdpfleet) 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 12 November 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 want structured data from popular sites or search engines without writing scrapers — pre-built scrapers and the SERP API at $1.50 per 1,000 results or less — or very many sessions at once without planning capacity.

### 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 scrapes with actions, screenshots and PDFs in one call, crawls that follow links, and [monitors](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/monitors) that keep diffs — next to the browser, from one API.
-   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](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/quickstart) is one HTTPS call and five lines of Playwright; the [code builder](https://cdpfleet.com/docs/builder) writes the launch for any browser and option set in your language.

### Sources

-   [Bright Data Browser API pricing](https://brightdata.com/pricing/scraping-browser)
-   [Browser API introduction](https://docs.brightdata.com/products/scraping-browser/introduction)
-   [Browser API configuration (connecting Puppeteer, Playwright, Selenium; session limits)](https://docs.brightdata.com/products/scraping-browser/configuration)
-   [Browser API FAQs (pricing, password typing, proxies, one domain per session)](https://docs.brightdata.com/products/scraping-browser/faqs)
-   [Browser API error codes (session limits, KYC restrictions)](https://docs.brightdata.com/products/scraping-browser/error-codes)
-   [Browser API custom CDP functions (CAPTCHA, devices, sessions, bandwidth, downloads)](https://docs.brightdata.com/products/scraping-browser/cdp-functions/custom)
-   [Browser API geolocation targeting](https://docs.brightdata.com/products/scraping-browser/features/proxy-location)
-   [Browser API premium domains](https://docs.brightdata.com/products/scraping-browser/features/premium-domains)
-   [Browser API debugger (troubleshooting)](https://docs.brightdata.com/products/scraping-browser/features/troubleshooting)
-   [Bright Data docs: free tier](https://docs.brightdata.com/general/account/billing-and-pricing/free-tier)
-   [Bright Data site index (product summaries and prices)](https://brightdata.com/llms.txt)
-   [Web Unlocker API features (Markdown, screenshot, rendering, expect)](https://docs.brightdata.com/products/web-unlocker/features)
-   [Web Unlocker API webhooks](https://docs.brightdata.com/products/web-unlocker/setup-webhooks)
-   [Web Unlocker API pricing](https://brightdata.com/pricing/web-unlocker)
-   [Fetch API (formerly Crawl API)](https://docs.brightdata.com/products/scrapers/fetch-api/introduction)
-   [Fetch API endpoints](https://docs.brightdata.com/products/scrapers/fetch-api/send-first-request)
-   [Crawl API product page](https://brightdata.com/products/crawl-api)
-   [Scraper API limits (snapshot retention)](https://docs.brightdata.com/products/scrapers/limits)
-   [Scraper API pricing](https://brightdata.com/pricing/web-scraper)
-   [Scraper Studio: schedules and delivery](https://docs.brightdata.com/products/scraper-studio/initiate-collection-and-delivery-options)
-   [SERP API introduction](https://docs.brightdata.com/products/serp-api/introduction)
-   [SERP API pricing and billing](https://docs.brightdata.com/products/serp-api/pricing-and-billing)
-   [SERP API pricing](https://brightdata.com/pricing/serp)
-   [Business Search pricing](https://docs.brightdata.com/products/business-search/pricing)
-   [Bright Data MCP tools](https://docs.brightdata.com/products/mcp-server/tools)
-   [Bright Data MCP OAuth 2.1](https://docs.brightdata.com/products/mcp-server/remote/oauth)
-   [Bright Data CLI](https://docs.brightdata.com/products/cli/overview)
-   [Bright Data Python SDK](https://docs.brightdata.com/api-reference/SDK)
-   [Bright Data docs index for agents (MCP, CLI, skills, SDK)](https://docs.brightdata.com/llms.txt)

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Source: https://cdpfleet.com/docs/compare/cdpfleet-vs-bright-data · Markdown: https://cdpfleet.com/docs/compare/cdpfleet-vs-bright-data.md · All docs for AI tools: https://cdpfleet.com/llms.txt