Advantage #1
OnboardingAethyn
MinutesBright DataKYC first
Aethyn vs Bright Data
Bright Data is the largest data-collection platform on the market, with an enormous IP pool and a deep catalog of datasets and scraping products. Aethyn takes a narrower, engineer-first approach: one unified residential endpoint, per-byte billing, and transparent pricing without enterprise sales friction.
€2.00 / GB Volume Rates
0 Minimum Commitments
Instant Self-Serve
Aethyn is our product. Competitor claims were last verified against Bright Data's public pricing.
WHY TEAMS SWITCH
Where Aethyn wins against Bright Data
The core architecture & pricing decisions that make engineering teams switch.
Advantage #2
BillingAethyn
Public per-GBBright DataSales-assisted
Advantage #3
ConfigAethyn
UsernameBright DataZone dashboard
Advantage #4
ExpiryAethyn
PAYG never expiresBright DataPlan-dependent
01
Quick verdict
Bright Data is an enterprise data-collection platform that bundles residential proxies with datasets, a Web Unlocker, a SERP API, and a scraping browser. If you need that full catalog under one vendor — with compliance teams, KYC, and account managers — Bright Data is genuinely the strongest option on the market, and we say so as a competitor. Aethyn wins a narrower fight: you want residential proxies only, you want to read the price off a public page, and you want your first request working in minutes rather than after a sales conversation. Aethyn publishes per-GB rates (€2.90/GB entry, €2.00/GB at volume on Premium), meters by the byte, and encodes country, city, ISP, and session targeting directly in the proxy username. Teams that outgrow Bright Data's packaging — or never needed it — typically land here.
02
Residential access without a KYC queue
Bright Data's mandatory KYC on residential products is a real compliance strength — and real onboarding friction. Teams that need exits today often wait on document review, zone provisioning, and account checks before the first authenticated request lands. Aethyn takes the opposite posture for focused residential work: self-serve signup, public per-GB rates, and credentials that work in minutes. You still get consented, KYC-verified peer sourcing on the pool side; you do not sit in a customer KYC queue just to buy bandwidth. If your procurement team wants Bright Data's full platform compliance theater, keep it. If you only need residential proxies with country, city, ISP, and session in the username, skip the queue and start on Premium or Elite.
03
Feature matrix
How Aethyn and Bright Data line up on the decisions that matter at purchase time.
| Feature | AethynOUR CHOICE | Bright Data |
|---|---|---|
| Pricing model | Per-GB, subscription or PAYG, public | Tiered, product-by-product, sales-assisted |
| Entry point | €29 for 10 GB, self-serve | PAYG or monthly commitment + KYC |
| Bandwidth expiry | PAYG never expires | Plan-dependent |
| Onboarding | Self-serve, first request in minutes | Self-serve to sales-assisted, KYC on residential |
| Targeting | Country, city, ISP, session in username | Country, city, ASN, carrier |
| Protocols | HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS5 | HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS5 |
| Product surface | Focused residential proxy + dashboard | Broad platform (datasets, APIs, browser) |
| Usage visibility | Live per-byte metering | Dashboard analytics |
04
Pricing models
As of August 14, 2026. We compare structure — expiry, multipliers, minimums — not a unit-price scoreboard. Aethyn pricing · Bright Data pricing
AethynRECOMMENDED FOR ENGINEERS
Per-GB, subscription or pay-as-you-go, all public
- Premium residential from €2.90/GB entry down to €2.00/GB at 90+ GB/month — 10 GB subscription is €29
- Elite residential from €6.50/GB down to €4.50/GB at volume, for hardened anti-bot targets
- Pay-as-you-go is a flat +10% over subscription rates, and PAYG bandwidth never expires
- Per-byte metering with live usage in the dashboard; unlimited concurrent threads on every plan
- No sales call, no minimum commit, no separate product SKUs to price
Bright Data
Per-product tiers + monthly commitments, sales-assisted at scale
- Pricing is product-by-product: residential, ISP, datacenter, and mobile proxies plus Web Unlocker, SERP API, and datasets are all metered separately
- Pay-as-you-go exists for residential, but the effective per-GB rate improves materially with monthly commitments
- KYC verification is required before residential access — a real compliance strength, and real onboarding friction
- Managed products (unlocking, SERP scraping) are billed per request/result on top of bandwidth
- Enterprise tiers are negotiated with sales rather than published as a single rate card
Methodology: Aethyn figures are from our published pricing page. Competitor claims reflect their public materials as of August 14, 2026 (source). Where a public rate is not verifiable we say so. See also how we measure quality.
05
Network & pool
Aethyn
- 85M+ residential IPs across 195+ countries, sourced from consented, KYC-verified peers
- Two explicit pools: Premium (99.2% success rate) and Elite (99.9%, curated high-reputation ISP exits)
- Country targeting on both tiers; city, ISP, and ASN targeting on Elite
- HTTP, HTTPS, and SOCKS5 on dedicated ports from one credential set
Bright Data
- One of the largest residential pools in the industry, plus ISP, datacenter, and mobile networks
- Country, city, ASN, and carrier targeting depending on product and zone
- Mature compliance program with mandatory KYC on residential products
- Broadest product surface in the category: proxies, datasets, unlocker, SERP API, scraping browser
06
Sessions & targeting
Every request rotates to a fresh exit IP by default. Appending session-<id> to the username pins one IP for a sticky session — 30 minutes by default, extensible to 24 hours with lifetime-<minutes>. Rotation, geography, and session state all live in the credential string, so automation never touches a dashboard mid-run.
Bright Data handles sessions at the zone level: you create a residential zone in the control panel, then request sticky IPs via username flags (e.g. -session-abc123) with rotation behavior governed by zone settings. It is powerful — session policy, IP type gating, and targeting are all configurable — but the configuration surface spans the dashboard, the zone, and the username grammar.
Aethyn username — targeting in the credential
aethyn-d9e2c-country-us-session-a3xq-lifetime-30See authentication docs and targeting for the full grammar.
07
Integration
Both providers ultimately speak standard HTTP proxy auth, so client code looks similar. The difference is everything around the request: Bright Data asks you to provision a zone first (and complete KYC for residential), while Aethyn issues one credential pair whose suffixes carry all targeting.
Aethyn — Python requests
import requests
username = "aethyn-d9e2c-country-us-session-a3xq-lifetime-30"
proxy = "http://" + username + ":YOUR_PROXY_PASSWORD@proxy.aethyn.io:2099"
resp = requests.get(
"https://example.com/products",
proxies={"http": proxy, "https": proxy},
timeout=30,
)
print(resp.status_code)Bright Data (per public docs)
import requests
# Zone created in the Bright Data control panel first
username = "brd-customer-CUSTOMER_ID-zone-residential-country-us"
proxy = "http://" + username + ":ZONE_PASSWORD@brd.superproxy.io:22225"
resp = requests.get(
"https://example.com/products",
proxies={"http": proxy, "https": proxy},
timeout=30,
)
print(resp.status_code)Prefer a typed helper? See the official SDK or Python requests setup.
Where Aethyn stands out
- Single unified endpoint — no per-product dashboards to learn
- Transparent per-byte and pay-as-you-go pricing, no mandatory sales call
- Targeting (country, city, ISP, session) encoded directly in the username
- Live per-byte usage accounting visible in the dashboard
- PAYG bandwidth never expires — no use-it-or-lose-it monthly credits
Where Bright Data is strong
- One of the largest residential IP pools in the industry
- Broad product suite: datasets, Web Unlocker, SERP API, scraping browser
- Mature compliance program and KYC processes
- Extensive documentation and integrations
08
Trade-offs with Bright Data
- Pricing and packaging can be complex for smaller teams
- Many features sit behind sales calls or enterprise tiers
- Onboarding overhead can be high for a single scraping workflow
- KYC gating adds days when you just need residential exits quickly
Choose Bright Data if
Large enterprises that need a full data-collection platform, prebuilt datasets, and managed services under one vendor.
Choose Aethyn ifENGINEER CHOICE
Engineering teams that want clean residential IPs, predictable pricing, and a fast path from signup to first request.
EASY SETUP
09
Switch from Bright Data in three steps
Get started in minutes with a straightforward setup and clear documentation.
Create account / credentials
Create an Aethyn account and generate Premium credentials — Elite if your Bright Data zones were gated to their highest-reputation pool.
Configure targeting
Map zone settings into username suffixes: country-us, city-<name> and isp-<name> (Elite), session-<id> for sticky work. Point at proxy.aethyn.io HTTP 2099 / SOCKS5 1099 (Elite 5499/3499).
Connect & cut over
Pilot a fixed 100-URL basket from production targets, compare success rate and cost per successful request, then freeze Bright Data zones so nothing silently fails back to committed spend.
Ready to Get StartedTry Free Now
Premium · Elite · Quickstart
10
Alternatives to Bright Data
Best for: self-serve residentialAethynFocused residential proxies with published per-GB pricing, username-encoded targeting, and no sales gate.Best for: enterprise catalog + SLAsOxylabsThe other full-service enterprise platform — similar catalog breadth, similar procurement motion.Best for: mid-market dashboardSmartproxy (Decodo)Mid-market polish with friendlier self-serve onboarding than the enterprise platforms.Best for: managed HTML-in APIScraperAPIIf you used Bright Data mostly for managed unblocking, a scraping API may replace the whole proxy layer.
Full Bright Data alternatives roundup with diagrams and the proxy-versus-platform split. PAYG bandwidth never expires.
11
The verdict
Choose Bright Data when you need an end-to-end enterprise data platform with datasets and managed services. Choose Aethyn when you want focused, transparent residential proxies and the fastest path from signup to production traffic.
12
Frequently asked questions
Is Aethyn a good Bright Data alternative?
Aethyn is a strong Bright Data alternative for teams that primarily need reliable residential proxies with transparent per-byte pricing, rather than a full enterprise data-collection platform. If you mainly route scraping or verification traffic through residential IPs, Aethyn removes a lot of platform overhead.
How does Aethyn pricing compare to Bright Data?
Aethyn publishes per-GB pricing — €2.90/GB entry down to €2.00/GB at volume on Premium — with subscription and pay-as-you-go options and no mandatory sales call. Bright Data prices each product separately and rewards monthly commitments, which is powerful for enterprises but harder to estimate for a single workflow.
Does Aethyn support the same targeting as Bright Data?
Aethyn supports country, city, ISP, and session targeting encoded directly in the proxy username, covering the targeting most scraping and verification workflows require. Bright Data additionally offers carrier-level targeting on some products.
Can I use Aethyn alongside Bright Data?
Yes. Many teams run both: Bright Data's managed products (Web Unlocker, datasets) for the hardest targets, and Aethyn's per-GB residential for the bulk of traffic where a clean proxy is all you need. Because Aethyn bills per byte with no commitment, it costs nothing to keep as a secondary route.
Related guides
Bright Data and Oxylabs Alternatives in 2026 (Proxy Layer vs Platform)A Bright Data alternative is either a cheaper residential proxy layer for a scraper you already run, or a different full-stack scraping platform. Do not mix those two lists.Residential Proxy Pricing in 2026: What You Actually Pay per GBResidential proxy pricing is the published euros or dollars you pay per gigabyte of household-ISP traffic. Here is a dated 10 / 50 / 100 GB sticker table — then why sticker is not the bill.Best Residential Proxies for Web Scraping in 2026 (Tested Criteria, Published Sources)Nine residential proxy vendors ranked for web-scraping buyers on pricing transparency, documented targeting, session control, and self-serve access — every competitor fact linked and dated.ScraperAPI vs Proxy-Only: Web Scraping API Comparison (2026)ScraperAPI and ZenRows bundle proxies with rendering and retries. Aethyn and Bright Data sell raw proxies. We compare cost, control, and maintenance for engineering teams in 2026.
Products & learning
Premium residential proxiesCost-efficient rotating residential pool from €2.00/GB for bulk scraping and monitoring.Elite residential proxiesCurated high-trust pool with city and ISP targeting for hard anti-bot targets.Proxy glossaryPlain-English definitions for residential proxies, rotation, anti-bot, and scraping terms.Best proxies for scrapingDeveloper-focused residential proxy comparison for 2026.
More comparisons
“Bright Data” and related marks are trademarks of their respective owners. Comparisons on this page are for informational purposes only and do not imply affiliation, endorsement, or partnership.