String is the better fit when the job is returning difficult, bot-protected pages through one API. Bright Data is the better fit when you need raw proxy infrastructure, datasets, search results, browser automation, and web unlocking under one contract. In the August 2026 Web Data Frontier Benchmark, String returned verified content on 97.0% of 495 requests. Bright Data returned it on 78.0%. String's failure-aware latency score was 9.98 seconds, compared with 26.14 seconds for Bright Data.
Bright Data still wins important cases. Its product catalog is much broader, both providers passed all 40 social-platform requests, and its Web Unlocker pay-as-you-go rate is cheaper than String when String needs a premium proxy or browser. Buyers should test their own targets before choosing either provider.
Last updated August 31, 2026. Benchmark figures come from the August 11, 2026 run. Bright Data product, pricing, and billing claims were checked against its published product catalog, Web Unlocker, residential proxy, and feature documentation on August 31, 2026.
| String | Bright Data | |
|---|---|---|
| Product shape | One fetch API, plus search, sitemap crawling, remote Chrome, and MCP | Proxies, Web Unlocker, scraper APIs, datasets, SERP API, and Browser API |
| Benchmark success | 97.0% (480/495) | 78.0% (386/495) |
| Failure-aware latency score | 9.98s, second of 15 | 26.14s, fifteenth of 15 |
| Sites passed on all 5 attempts | 92 of 99 | 57 of 99 |
| Sites passed on no attempts | 2 of 99 | 11 of 99 |
| Social-platform requests | 40/40 | 40/40 |
| Entry price | 5,000 free; Starter $20 plus usage | 5,000 Web Unlocker requests free; pay as you go has no monthly commitment |
| Usage price | Growth: $0.20 to $4.00 per 1,000 successful requests | Web Unlocker: $1.50 per 1,000 successful requests; premium domains cost more |
| Raw proxy network | No | 400M+ monthly residential IPs, plus ISP, datacenter, and mobile products |
| Best fit | Protected pages that have to return reliably | Broad web-data and proxy infrastructure under one vendor |
The Web Data Frontier Benchmark sends every provider the same 99 URLs five times. A response passes only when it contains a marker from the real page. A CAPTCHA or block page that returns HTTP 200 still fails. The run made 7,425 live requests across 15 providers.
String built the benchmark and sells the product that ranked first. The test is public so that conflict is inspectable: the target list and pass criteria, Bright Data adapter, and complete results JSON are available for review. Bright Data ran through Web Unlocker with raw output, the closest match to String's fetch endpoint.
| Provider | Successful requests | Success rate | Latency score |
|---|---|---|---|
| String | 480/495 | 97.0% | 9.98s |
| Bright Data | 386/495 | 78.0% | 26.14s |
The latency score is failure-aware. For each target it takes the p75 of successful attempts; a provider that never returns the page inherits the p75 of providers that did. That prevents a fast block page from looking like good performance. String ranked second on this measure. Bright Data ranked last.
Bright Data returned nothing on all five attempts for 11 sites: Temu, Lowe's, Skyscanner, Expedia, Coupang, Ticketmaster, SeatGeek, Yahoo Finance, Reuters, Verizon, and Target. String returned content on nine of those 11 and passed all five attempts on eight. Temu and Skyscanner shut out both providers.
The less visible difference was inconsistency. Bright Data returned some, but not all, attempts on 31 sites. String was partial on five. Best Buy, Kroger, and Carter's passed one of five attempts through Bright Data; Home Depot, Instacart, Mouser, StockX, and American Airlines passed two. String cleared every attempt on those sites except Mouser, where it passed four.
That does not prove String will win on every buyer's list. It shows how the two products behaved on the benchmark's 99 targets. Run a subset of the public harness against the domains that matter to you.
| Anti-bot system | String | Bright Data |
|---|---|---|
| Cloudflare | 100% | 85% |
| Akamai | 98% | 60% |
| DataDome | 98% | 82% |
| PerimeterX | 89% | 69% |
String led these four groups in the August run. Social platforms were a tie: both providers passed all 40 requests across the eight social targets. If public social pages dominate the workload, this benchmark gives neither provider an advantage.
Bright Data Web Unlocker accepts a URL and returns unblocked HTML or JSON. It manages proxy selection, retries, CAPTCHA solving, and browser rendering. It can also convert pages to Markdown. That makes it a direct String competitor.
Bright Data is also much more than Web Unlocker. Its catalog includes residential proxies, ISP, datacenter, and mobile proxy products; structured datasets; a SERP API; scraper APIs; and managed browsers. Teams that want those products under one vendor should count that breadth as a real advantage.
String is narrower. Send a URL to the Web Access API and get Markdown, HTML, or JSON. Proxy rotation, fingerprinting, CAPTCHA solving, and browser escalation happen behind the endpoint. String also provides search, an asynchronous sitemap crawl, remote Chrome over CDP, and an MCP server. It does not provide a raw proxy network, prebuilt datasets, or Bright Data's full scraper catalog.
Both providers publish agent integrations. Bright Data maintains an official MCP package and documents a 5,000-request MCP free tier. String's MCP server is listed as ai.usestring/web-access and exposes fetch, search, and sitemap tools.
Bright Data Web Unlocker pricing is straightforward for standard domains:
Bright Data's premium-domain feature uses a higher rate shown in the customer dashboard. The public page does not provide one universal premium-domain price. Regular Web Unlocker usage bills successful requests. If custom headers, cookies, or expect elements are enabled, the same feature documentation says every request bills, successful or failed.
String charges a subscription plus successful usage. The first 5,000 requests are free. Starter is $20 per month and Growth is $100. Growth rates are:
| Fetch path | Price per 1,000 successful requests |
|---|---|
| Request, standard proxy | $0.20 |
| Browser, standard proxy | $1.00 |
| Request, premium proxy | $2.00 |
| Browser, premium proxy | $4.00 |
The honest comparison changes with the page. String is cheaper than Bright Data's $1.50 rate on its standard request and standard-browser paths. Bright Data is cheaper than String's $2.00 premium-request path and $4.00 browser-plus-premium path, before any Bright Data premium-domain surcharge. Bright Data can also be cheaper for a light workload because its pay-as-you-go plan has no $100 subscription. String's credits roll over and blocked requests are not billed.
Do not divide either provider's normal success-billed rate by its benchmark success rate. A blocked request normally costs neither provider anything, so that division invents a charge. Success rate answers whether the page arrives. The rate card answers what a successful page costs. The broader 13-provider pricing comparison keeps those two questions separate.
Bright Data's raw proxy product uses a different unit. Its residential pricing page lists $8 per GB pay as you go before the coupon shown on August 31, with committed plans beginning at $499. Headers, response size, assets, and retries all affect bandwidth. That is useful infrastructure, but it cannot be compared with a successful-request API by looking at one headline number.
The products do not have to replace each other. Keep Bright Data for raw proxy sessions, datasets, or search-engine results, and send the protected URLs that miss through String. The reverse can also make sense: use String as the default fetch layer and Bright Data when a workflow needs a proxy session or one of its structured products.
Test the overlap before changing production traffic. Both providers offer 5,000 free requests, enough to compare a representative target list without extrapolating the benchmark to your business.
If Bright Data is one option among several, the Bright Data alternatives comparison places six substitutes next to the same benchmark.
On the August 2026 Web Data Frontier Benchmark, yes. String returned verified content on 97.0% of 495 requests and Bright Data on 78.0%. String also had the faster failure-aware latency score, 9.98 seconds against 26.14. The benchmark covers 99 specific sites, so buyers should still run the public test harness against their own targets.
Sometimes. String Growth costs $0.20 per 1,000 successful standard requests and $1.00 with a browser on a standard proxy, both below Bright Data Web Unlocker's $1.50 pay-as-you-go rate. Bright Data is cheaper than String's $2.00 premium-request and $4.00 browser-plus-premium paths when the target remains in Bright Data's standard domain class. Bright Data also has no subscription on pay as you go, while String Growth costs $100 per month.
Regular Web Unlocker usage bills successful requests. Bright Data's feature documentation says enabling custom headers, cookies, or expect elements changes billing to every request, including failures. Raw proxies bill bandwidth, not successful pages.
Bright Data. Its residential proxy page advertises more than 400 million monthly IPs across 195 countries, and it also sells ISP, datacenter, and mobile proxy products. String does not sell raw proxies.
String on the failure-aware benchmark score: 9.98 seconds against Bright Data's 26.14. That score includes the cost of targets a provider fails and should not be read as a raw response-time promise for every successful page. Test the domains and configuration you plan to use.
Stay when you need raw proxy control, structured datasets, SERP results, managed browser infrastructure, or an established enterprise vendor under one contract. Bright Data also matched String on every social-platform request in the benchmark and can be cheaper on pages that push String onto premium paths.
Yes. The benchmark repository, Bright Data adapter, and August results file are public. A full run makes thousands of billable requests, so begin with a subset of your own target list.
