Brightdata performance tuning

Bright Data Performance Tuning

Overview

Optimize Bright Data scraping performance through connection pooling, response caching, concurrent request tuning, and smart product selection. Web Unlocker latency is typically 5-30s due to CAPTCHA solving; Scraping Browser sessions are 10-60s.

Prerequisites

• Bright Data zone configured
• Understanding of async patterns
• Redis or file cache available (optional)

Latency Benchmarks

Product	P50	P95	P99	Notes
Web Unlocker (simple)	3s	8s	15s	No CAPTCHA
Web Unlocker (CAPTCHA)	10s	25s	45s	With CAPTCHA solving
Scraping Browser	8s	20s	40s	Full browser render
SERP API (sync)	2s	5s	10s	Search results
Residential Proxy	1s	3s	8s	Raw proxy, no unblocking

Instructions

Step 1: Choose the Right Product

// Product selection matrix
function selectProduct(target: { js: boolean; captcha: boolean; structured: boolean }) {
  if (target.structured) return 'serp_api';       // Pre-parsed JSON
  if (!target.js && !target.captcha) return 'residential'; // Fastest
  if (target.js) return 'scraping_browser';         // Browser rendering
  return 'web_unlocker';                            // Best default
}

Step 2: Connection Pooling with Keep-Alive

import { Agent } from 'https';
import axios from 'axios';

// Reuse TCP connections to brd.superproxy.io
const httpsAgent = new Agent({
  keepAlive: true,
  maxSockets: 25,        // Match your concurrency limit
  maxFreeSockets: 5,
  timeout: 120000,
  rejectUnauthorized: false,
});

const client = axios.create({
  proxy: { host: 'brd.superproxy.io', port: 33335, auth: { username: proxyUser, password: proxyPass } },
  httpsAgent,
  timeout: 60000,
});

Step 3: Response Caching Layer

// src/brightdata/cache.ts — avoid re-scraping identical URLs
import { createHash } from 'crypto';
import { LRUCache } from 'lru-cache';

const memoryCache = new LRUCache<string, string>({
  max: 500,             // Max cached pages
  maxSize: 100_000_000, // 100MB total
  sizeCalculation: (v) => Buffer.byteLength(v),
  ttl: 3600000,         // 1 hour
});

export async function cachedScrape(
  url: string,
  scraper: (url: string) => Promise<string>,
  ttlMs?: number
): Promise<string> {
  const key = createHash('sha256').update(url).digest('hex');
  const cached = memoryCache.get(key);
  if (cached) {
    console.log(`Cache HIT: ${url}`);
    return cached;
  }

  const html = await scraper(url);
  memoryCache.set(key, html, { ttl: ttlMs });
  console.log(`Cache MISS: ${url} (${Buffer.byteLength(html)} bytes)`);
  return html;
}

Step 4: Concurrent Scraping with Backpressure

import PQueue from 'p-queue';

// Tune concurrency based on your plan and target site
const scrapeQueue = new PQueue({
  concurrency: 10,      // Concurrent proxy connections
  interval: 1000,       // Per second window
  intervalCap: 15,      // Max new requests per second
});

async function scrapeMany(urls: string[]): Promise<Map<string, string>> {
  const results = new Map<string, string>();

  await Promise.allSettled(
    urls.map(url =>
      scrapeQueue.add(async () => {
        const html = await cachedScrape(url, (u) => client.get(u).then(r => r.data));
        results.set(url, html);
      })
    )
  );

  console.log(`Scraped ${results.size}/${urls.length} successfully`);
  return results;
}

Step 5: Use Async API for Bulk Jobs

For 100+ URLs, use the Web Scraper API instead of individual proxy requests:

// Bulk collection — one API call, Bright Data handles parallelism
async function bulkScrape(urls: string[]) {
  const response = await fetch(
    `https://api.brightdata.com/datasets/v3/trigger?dataset_id=${DATASET_ID}&format=json`,
    {
      method: 'POST',
      headers: {
        'Authorization': `Bearer ${process.env.BRIGHTDATA_API_TOKEN}`,
        'Content-Type': 'application/json',
      },
      body: JSON.stringify(urls.map(url => ({ url }))),
    }
  );
  return response.json(); // Returns snapshot_id for status polling
}
// 1000 URLs via one trigger vs 1000 individual proxy requests

Step 6: Performance Monitoring

class ScrapeMetrics {
  private timings: number[] = [];
  private errors = 0;
  private cacheHits = 0;

  record(durationMs: number) { this.timings.push(durationMs); }
  recordError() { this.errors++; }
  recordCacheHit() { this.cacheHits++; }

  report() {
    const sorted = [...this.timings].sort((a, b) => a - b);
    return {
      count: sorted.length,
      errors: this.errors,
      cacheHits: this.cacheHits,
      p50: sorted[Math.floor(sorted.length * 0.5)] || 0,
      p95: sorted[Math.floor(sorted.length * 0.95)] || 0,
      p99: sorted[Math.floor(sorted.length * 0.99)] || 0,
    };
  }
}

Output

• Right product selection per use case
• Connection pooling reducing TCP overhead
• Response cache avoiding duplicate scrapes
• Concurrent scraping with backpressure control
• Bulk API for large-scale jobs

Error Handling

Issue	Cause	Solution
Slow scrapes	CAPTCHA solving overhead	Expected for Web Unlocker; use cache
Connection exhausted	Too many concurrent	Reduce p-queue concurrency
Memory pressure	Large cached pages	Set maxSize on LRU cache
Timeout storms	All requests hitting slow site	Add circuit breaker

Resources

• Bright Data Products
• Web Scraper API
• p-queue

Next Steps

For cost optimization, see brightdata-cost-tuning.