Bright Data

What it is

Bright Data is one of the largest web data companies, selling proxies, scraping APIs and pre-collected datasets. Its Twitter Scraper API collects public X data such as posts, replies, reposts, hashtags, media and profiles, delivered as JSON or CSV, and it also sells ready-made X datasets. Pricing is per successful record with proxies, unblocking and parsing included: a free tier of 5,000 records a month with no credit card, pay as you go at $1.50 per 1,000 records, or Scale at $499 a month with 384,000 records and $1.30 per 1,000 after that, plus custom Enterprise plans. It markets itself as GDPR and CCPA compliant and collects only public, logged-out data; in May 2024 a US federal judge dismissed X Corp's 2023 scraping lawsuit against Bright Data. That ruling does not make scraping part of X's terms: X's own API remains the only route X permits. Checked on brightdata.com/products/web-scraper/twitter and brightdata.com/pricing/web-scraper November 14, 2026.

Best for

• Companies that need millions of public X posts or profiles reliably
• Data and AI teams buying ready-made social datasets
• Teams that already use Bright Data for other sites

What we like

• Pay only for successfully delivered records; proxies and unblocking included
• Free tier of 5,000 records a month to test
• Ready-made X datasets as well as a live scraper API
• Enterprise SLA, compliance documentation and a 2024 court win against X over public-data scraping

What to watch

• More expensive than smaller unofficial APIs: $1.50 per 1,000 records pay as you go
• Read-only: no posting, replying or DMs
• Still unofficial: X's terms prohibit scraping and X can change its site at any time
• Built for data teams; setup is heavier than a simple REST API