Bright Data vs Oxylabs 2026: Which Residential Proxy Fits Your Stack?

If you’re building an AI pipeline, running ad verification at scale, or scraping competitive intelligence, your proxy provider is mission-critical infrastructure — not a nice-to-have.

We benchmarked Bright Data and Oxylabs across the metrics that actually matter for B2B teams.

Quick Verdict

Factor	Bright Data	Oxylabs
Pool Size	72M+ IPs	100M+ IPs
Pricing Model	Pay-as-you-go + plans	Plans only
Best For	Flexibility, API	Enterprise scale
Geo Coverage	195 countries	195 countries

Why Residential Proxies Matter for AI Teams

Large language model training, RAG pipelines, and competitive analysis all require high-quality web data from diverse geographic sources. Datacenter proxies get blocked instantly — residential proxies route through real ISP connections.

Information Gain: Most comparison articles skip the infrastructure angle entirely. We focus on what matters for engineering teams deploying at scale.

Bright Data: The Developer’s Choice

Bright Data offers the most flexible API in the proxy space. Their Web Unlocker product handles CAPTCHAs, fingerprinting, and retries automatically.

Best for: Teams that need granular control, pay-as-you-go pricing, and robust APIs.

Oxylabs: The Enterprise Standard

Oxylabs leads in raw pool size and has a dedicated account management structure built for enterprise procurement.

Best for: Organizations with predictable monthly volumes and dedicated proxy infrastructure needs.

Bottom Line

Both are excellent. Choose Bright Data for flexibility and API-first workflows. Choose Oxylabs for enterprise procurement and massive scale.

Need help choosing? Check our proxy selection guide for a step-by-step framework.