Connect to Bright Data Data in DBeaver

Jerod Johnson
Jerod Johnson
Director, Technology Evangelism
Use the CData ODBC Driver to connect to Bright Data data in DBeaver.

NOTE: The Legacy ODBC driver was removed in DBeaver Community Edition 23.1. As an alternative, you can use a CData JDBC Driver (learn how here: How to Connect DBeaver to Bright Data via JDBC). If you need to use ODBC Drivers, refer to the DBeaver Documentation.


The CData API Driver for ODBC enables access to live data from Bright Data under the ODBC standard, allowing you work with Bright Data data in a wide variety of BI, reporting, and ETL tools and directly, using familiar SQL queries. This article shows how to manage Bright Data data with visual tools in DBeaver like the query browser.

The CData ODBC drivers offer unmatched performance for interacting with live Bright Data data in DBeaver due to optimized data processing built into the driver. When you issue complex SQL queries from DBeaver to Bright Data, the driver pushes supported SQL operations, like filters and aggregations, directly to Bright Data and utilizes the embedded SQL engine to process unsupported operations (often SQL functions and JOIN operations) client-side. With built-in dynamic metadata querying, you can manage and analyze Bright Data data.

Connect to Bright Data

If you have not already done so, provide values for the required connection properties in the data source name (DSN). You can configure the DSN using the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator. This is also the last step of the driver installation. See the "Getting Started" chapter in the Help documentation for a guide to using the Microsoft ODBC Data Source Administrator to create and configure a DSN.

Using API Key Authentication

To use the Bright Data API, you need an API key from the Bright Data Control Panel. Navigate to Account Settings > API to generate or retrieve your API key.

After setting the following connection properties, you are ready to connect:

  • AuthScheme: Set this to APIKey.
  • APIKey: Set this to your Bright Data API key from the Control Panel.

Example connection string:

Profile=C:\profiles\BrightData.apip;AuthScheme=APIKey;ProfileSettings="APIKey=your_api_key"

Finally, set the "Map To WVarchar connection property to False in the DSN Configuration window for the driver. This configuration will allow string types to be mapped to SQL_VARCHAR and prevent SQL_WVARCHAR types from being displayed as NULL.

Connecting to the Bright Data ODBC Data Source in DBeaver

  1. Open the DBeaver application and in the Database menu, select the New Database Connection option.
  2. In the 'Connect to a database' window, select ODBC and click Next.
  3. In the Database/Schema field, enter the DSN name (CData Bright Data Source by default). It will be automatically added to the JDBC URL as well.
  4. Click the Test Connection button. You should receive a 'Connected' message after DBeaver has detected the DSN, along with details about the driver if the connection is successful.

Query Bright Data Data

You can now query information from the tables exposed by the data source connection. You can expand the database structure in order to view all the tables. You can retrieve the table's data by right-clicking on a table name and selecting View data. The data will then be available in the Data tab.

Free Trial & More Information

At this point, you have connected to live Bright Data data from DBeaver. For more information, visit the CData ODBC Driver page. Download a free, 30-day trial and start working live Bright Data data DBeaver today.

Ready to get started?

Connect to live data from Bright Data with the API Driver

Connect to Bright Data