Lightpanda Cloud proxy routing: how do I set proxy=datacenter and country=de in the CDP connection string?

Most teams discover proxy routing in Lightpanda Cloud the hard way: they ship a crawler, hit a geo-fenced site, and realize their “cloud-scale” setup is still effectively one datacenter IP in one country. That’s exactly what the proxy=datacenter&country=de pattern is for: you keep your existing CDP client (Playwright, Puppeteer, chromedp), but tell Lightpanda Cloud to route traffic through a rotating pool of German datacenter IPs.

This guide walks through how to set proxy=datacenter and country=de in the CDP connection string, what that means operationally, and how to use it safely in production crawlers and agents.

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How proxy routing works in Lightpanda Cloud

Lightpanda Cloud exposes a Chrome DevTools Protocol (CDP) endpoint you connect to over WebSocket:

• EU West region:
  wss://euwest.cloud.lightpanda.io/ws
• US West region:
  wss://uswest.cloud.lightpanda.io/ws

You then configure behavior via query string parameters:

• token=YOUR_TOKEN – required for auth
• browser= – choose the browser engine
  • default: Lightpanda
  • browser=chrome – force Google Chrome
  • browser=lightpanda – force Lightpanda
• proxy= – choose proxy routing behavior
• country= – optional, refine proxy country when using datacenter

Because this is just a URL, your CDP client doesn’t need any special plugin. You pass a browserWSEndpoint (Puppeteer) or endpointURL/connectOverCDP (Playwright, chromedp), and the rest of your script stays the same.

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Proxy modes: fast_dc vs datacenter

Lightpanda Cloud currently supports:

• fast_dc (default)
  Single shared datacenter IP. Lowest friction, but no rotation and no country control.

• datacenter
  Pool of shared datacenter IPs with automatic rotation. Can be constrained to a specific country with country=XX (two-letter ISO code).

If you don’t specify proxy, you get fast_dc. If you want German IP rotation, you explicitly request:

proxy=datacenter&country=de

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The exact CDP connection string for Germany (country=de)

To connect to the EU West Lightpanda Cloud region with:

• Lightpanda browser (default)
• Datacenter proxy pool
• German IPs
• Your auth token

use:

wss://euwest.cloud.lightpanda.io/ws?proxy=datacenter&country=de&token=YOUR_TOKEN

Key points:

• proxy=datacenter selects the rotating datacenter pool.
• country=de constrains that pool to German IPs.
• Query parameter order doesn’t matter; all three must be present.
• You can swap euwest for uswest if you prefer the US region.

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Playwright example: proxy=datacenter&country=de

Using playwright-core and connectOverCDP:

import playwright from "playwright-core";

(async () => {
  const token = process.env.LIGHTPANDA_TOKEN;
  if (!token) throw new Error("Set LIGHTPANDA_TOKEN env var");

  const endpoint = `wss://euwest.cloud.lightpanda.io/ws?proxy=datacenter&country=de&token=${token}`;

  const browser = await playwright.chromium.connectOverCDP(endpoint);
  const context = await browser.newContext();
  const page = await context.newPage();

  await page.goto("https://example.com", { waitUntil: "load" });
  // Do your magic ✨

  await browser.close();
})();

Notes:

• chromium.connectOverCDP is the key entry point.
• No other Playwright code changes are required.
• You can still use the rest of Playwright’s API (contexts, tracing, etc.).

---

Puppeteer example: proxy=datacenter&country=de

With Puppeteer’s connect and a browserWSEndpoint:

import puppeteer from "puppeteer-core";

(async () => {
  const token = process.env.LIGHTPANDA_TOKEN;
  if (!token) throw new Error("Set LIGHTPANDA_TOKEN env var");

  const browserWSEndpoint =
    `wss://euwest.cloud.lightpanda.io/ws?proxy=datacenter&country=de&token=${token}`;

  const browser = await puppeteer.connect({ browserWSEndpoint });
  const page = await browser.newPage();

  await page.goto("https://example.com", { waitUntil: "networkidle2" });
  // Scrape, test, or drive the page

  await browser.close();
})();

You keep your Puppeteer script; you only swap the WebSocket endpoint from local Chrome to Lightpanda Cloud with the right query parameters.

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chromedp example: proxy=datacenter&country=de

In Go with chromedp, you can connect via a remote allocator:

package main

import (
	"context"
	"log"
	"os"

	"github.com/chromedp/chromedp"
)

func main() {
	token := os.Getenv("LIGHTPANDA_TOKEN")
	if token == "" {
		log.Fatal("Set LIGHTPANDA_TOKEN env var")
	}

	endpoint := "wss://euwest.cloud.lightpanda.io/ws?proxy=datacenter&country=de&token=" + token

	allocCtx, cancelAlloc := chromedp.NewRemoteAllocator(context.Background(), endpoint)
	defer cancelAlloc()

	ctx, cancel := chromedp.NewContext(allocCtx)
	defer cancel()

	if err := chromedp.Run(ctx,
		chromedp.Navigate("https://example.com"),
	); err != nil {
		log.Fatal(err)
	}
}

Again, the only Lightpanda-specific part is the CDP WebSocket URL.

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Choosing the browser: Lightpanda vs Chrome with the same proxy

You can use the same proxy and country flags regardless of whether you run:

• Lightpanda (built from scratch in Zig, headless-first, no rendering baggage)
• Google Chrome (for compatibility-heavy edge cases)

To run Chrome with German datacenter routing:

wss://euwest.cloud.lightpanda.io/ws?browser=chrome&proxy=datacenter&country=de&token=YOUR_TOKEN

To force Lightpanda explicitly:

wss://euwest.cloud.lightpanda.io/ws?browser=lightpanda&proxy=datacenter&country=de&token=YOUR_TOKEN

Operational pattern:

• Use Lightpanda by default for instant startup and low memory (we see ~2.3s vs 25.2s and ~24MB vs 207MB in a Puppeteer 100-page test on an EC2 m5.large).
• Fall back to Chrome only where you hit rendering quirks or legacy JS that needs it.
• Keep proxy and country stable across both so your routing behavior doesn’t change when you flip the engine.

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Common pitfalls when setting proxy=datacenter&country=de

A few things that tend to bite people:

1. Missing token parameter

This must be present:

...ws?proxy=datacenter&country=de&token=YOUR_TOKEN

Without token, the CDP handshake will fail.

2. Wrong country code format

• Use two-letter ISO country codes: de, fr, us, gb, etc.
• Lowercase is recommended (de, not DE) for consistency.

If the country is unsupported, routing behavior may fall back to a default pool. If you need a specific geography that isn’t available by default, contact us to configure additional proxies.

3. Forgetting proxy=datacenter

Setting country=de without proxy=datacenter doesn’t have the intended effect. Always pair them:

?proxy=datacenter&country=de&token=...

4. Hardcoding the region

If your workloads split across EU and US, make the region configurable:

const region = process.env.LIGHTPANDA_REGION ?? "euwest";
const endpoint = `wss://${region}.cloud.lightpanda.io/ws?proxy=datacenter&country=de&token=${token}`;

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Responsible use: robots.txt and rate limits

Lightpanda is built for machines, which means you can easily hit “too fast” territory:

• Respect robots.txt when crawling. Locally, you can enforce this via --obey_robots with the CLI; in Cloud, implement the same policy in your job runner.
• Avoid high-frequency requesting from the same IP range. With a datacenter pool, you can generate very high concurrency; uncontrolled, that looks like a DDOS very quickly.
• When in doubt, spread load over time and keep concurrency per target domain reasonable.

The whole point of proxy routing is to unlock legitimate geo-sensitive automation, not to blast sites.

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When to ask for custom proxy setups

The built-in datacenter pool with country=de covers most “I need German IPs” scenarios. You should reach out for custom configuration when:

• You need a dedicated IP (not shared pool) for compliance or allowlisting.
• You need specific providers or routing characteristics.
• You want multiple country pools in one project and tighter control per job.

Lightpanda Cloud supports additional proxies and custom configurations; if you’re operating at “millions of pages a day” scale, that usually pays for itself quickly in stability and lower operational surprises.

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TL;DR: the one line you need

To route your Lightpanda Cloud sessions through a rotating datacenter IP pool in Germany, your CDP connection string should look like this:

wss://euwest.cloud.lightpanda.io/ws?proxy=datacenter&country=de&token=YOUR_TOKEN

Drop that URL into your existing CDP client (Playwright, Puppeteer, chromedp), keep the rest of your script unchanged, and you’ve just added geo-aware proxy routing to a browser that actually behaves like a cloud primitive.

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