Proxy Provider Reviews - Proxyway https://proxyway.com/reviews Your Trusted Guide to All Things Proxy Thu, 29 May 2025 08:54:41 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.1 https://proxyway.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/favicon-150x150.png Proxy Provider Reviews - Proxyway https://proxyway.com/reviews 32 32 Decodo (formerly Smartproxy) Review https://proxyway.com/reviews/smartproxy-proxies https://proxyway.com/reviews/smartproxy-proxies#comments Mon, 07 Aug 2023 10:30:56 +0000 https://stage-web2.proxyway.com/?post_type=reviews&p=10451 Decodo (formerly Smartproxy) Review The best balance between features and price. Great proxies, affordable pricing plans, and fantastic 24/7 customer support make Decodo an attractive choice for most tasks. Rating 9.3 / 10 ★★★★★ 4.7/5 Try Decodo Try Decodo Residential Proxies for free. Decodo (formerly Smartproxy) often appears among the top choices in our proxy […]

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Decodo (formerly Smartproxy) Review

The best balance between features and price.

Great proxies, affordable pricing plans, and fantastic 24/7 customer support make Decodo an attractive choice for most tasks.

Rating 9.3 / 10
★★★★★ 4.7/5
Try Decodo

Try Decodo Residential Proxies for free.

Decodo (formerly Smartproxy) often appears among the top choices in our proxy lists. Historically, it was a stripped down version of the premium providers like Oxylabs and Bright Data – similarly performant but missing a feature here and there.

In 2025, Decodo is able to stand head-to-head with them, while still managing to compete with cheaper services like IPRoyal. This is no small feat – and one of the reasons why the company received our Best Value Provider award, four years in a row.

In this review, I’ll try to show what makes Decodo one of the best proxy services today – and whether you should choose it over the competition. Let’s go!

News about Decodo

Smartproxy Rebrands, Becomes Decodo

The new brand draws from hacker culture, represents the next phase in the company’s journey.
  • Provider News

Smartproxy Publishes an E-Commerce Maturity Index

The report investigates 120 stores across 40 countries.
  • Provider News

Smartproxy Adds Shared ISP Proxies, Cuts Mobile Proxy Rates

With a quick one-two, the provider exerts even more pressure on the competition.
  • Provider News
Read all news

General Information

  • Country: Lithuania
  • Founded: 2018
  • Employees (LinkedIn): 100-150
  • Proxy networks: Datacenter, ISP, residential, mobile
  • Web scrapers: APIs for general unblocking, search engines, e-commerce & social media
  • Supporting tools: Antidetect browser, proxy checker, Chrome & Firefox extensions
  • Price segment: Mid-market
  • Payment methods: Credit card, PayPal, Bitcoin, Apple Pay, Google Pay
  • Trial: Available for most products

Decodo was founded in 2018 under the name of Smartproxy. It rebranded in April 2025.

The company first resold IP addresses from others. Nowadays, it has a diverse pool that combines proxies from various sources. According to Decodo, they’re carefully vetted, but the provider doesn’t go into much detail about the topic. 

Decodo started out in reaction to premium proxy providers like Luminati (now Bright Data) and GeoSurf (now shut down), which were only accessible to business customers and had cumbersome onboarding procedures. 

At the time, Decodo’s IPs performed well while costing less than the high-end counterparts. This, along with some targeted marketing efforts, allowed Decodo to quickly sweep up many of the sneakerheads, Instagram managers, and small-time scrapers that were looking for affordable residential addresses. 

It also helped that the company heavily invested into customer experience: quality documentation, responsive support, and user-friendly interface. These qualities have remained Decodo’s forte throughout the years.

Today, Decodo can be considered one of the largest proxy providers, probably in the top five by size. Rotating proxies remain the backbone of its service, but there are now more products to choose from, including several web scrapers.

Decodo Proxy Networks

Decodo sells access to all major types of proxy servers:

  • Residential proxies with global country coverage.
  • Mobile proxies from real people’s devices around the world.
  • Datacenter proxies from around 15 countries in shared, dedicated, and pool-based formats.
  • ISP proxies, which are very similar to the datacenter proxies.
decodo proxy types
Decodo's proxy networks. Site Unblocker is actually a web scraper that pretends to be a proxy.

This review covers all four proxy networks. Expand the drop-down to learn more about them:

Residential proxies are Decodo’s flagship service made for accessing strict websites.

🌎 Pool Size & Coverage

  • Advertised proxy pool: 115 million 
  • Countries: 195+
  • Filtering: Random, country, state, city, ASN, ZIP code (US only)

Decodo’s residential proxy pool comprises 115 million IPs borrowed from real people’s devices. To give you some context, this is among the larger proxy networks on the market, at least looking at advertised numbers.

You get precise filtering tools out of the box, which allow selecting a city and even ZIP code (though only in the US).

Our benchmark (April 2025)

GatewayRequestsUnique IPsResidential %*
Global1.2M over 21 days1,155,60295.87%
US560k over 14 days466,06894.05%
UK560k over 14 days254,37993.66%
EU1.2M over 14 days322,77797.25%
Brazil560k over 14 days336,14396.45%
India560k over 14 days360,86096.74%
Australia140k over 7 days28,98696.66%

* IP2Location database, Usage type data point (ISP, ISP/MOB, MOB IPs)

Comparison with other providers

In our tests, Decodo had one of the largest proxy pools. We found many unique IPs in all tested locations, and over 400k proxies in the US. This is impressive and beats even premium competitors. 

📋 Features

  • Rotation: Every request, sessions up to 24 hours
  • Protocols: HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS5 (with UDP)
  • Concurrency: Unlimited threads & ports
  • Traffic: Plan based
  • Other: –

The proxies rotate with every connection request, and you can also establish sticky sessions. It’s possible to choose from a pre-set interval (like 30 mins) or specify any duration up to 24 hours. The connection also drops if you stop making requests for a minute. 

Decodo imposes no limitations on concurrency, meaning that you can make as many parallel requests as you like – or your hardware can handle. 

All connection protocols are available, including UDP (available upon request). Of course, the number of open ports will be limited. 

⚙️ Integration & Use

  • Connection method: Gateway address
  • Authentication: Credentials, IP whitelist
  • Connection format
    • Primary: us.decodo.com:10001, 10002…, au.decodo.com:30001…
    • Secondary: user-USERNAME-country-COUNTRY-city-CITY-session-ID:[email protected]:7000

Decodo’s residential proxy network uses gateway servers. They automatically choose the closest load balancer and route your requests through it before reaching the end user’s device. 

You actually get two integration formats: endpoints with different port numbers and a single backconnect gateway. 

Endpoints are the preferred method used in Decodo’s setup widget. They give you slightly different addresses based on the country you choose, and then generate ports for sticky sessions. This way, you don’t need to modify the username to target particular locations. 

The endpoint approach also supports city targeting, though it’s not always consistent. Major cities like New York have their own designated ports (city.smartproxy.com:21000, 21001, etc.), but smaller designations still add a username parameter:  gate.smartproxy.com:10001:user-USERNAME-country-us-city-kansas_city. 

The backconnect entry always sticks to the same gateway, and you can filter IPs by appending parameters to the username. This method is more flexible, but it may not be compatible with scenarios where credentials can’t be used. It’s also the only means to use location targeting with SOCKS5. 

💵 Pricing Plans

  • Model: PAYG, subscription (monthly plans)
  • Format: Traffic
  • Modifiers: Number of whitelisted IPs, sub-users
  • Starting price: $3.5 for 1 GB
  • Trial: 3-day free trial, 14-day limited refund

Decodo’s residential proxies used to have the highest starting price out of the provider’s three proxy networks, but now you can pay as you go.

It’s not cheap compared to competitors like DataImpulse but beats most premium and mid-range alternatives. So, these residential IPs can be a viable choice for small projects that need quality addresses. 

To avoid getting stuck between pricing tiers, Decodo allows topping up each plan at the same rate per gigabyte. This is limited to 80% of the plan’s worth, at which point it makes sense to simply buy a bigger plan. 

The proxies can be a solid option for large projects, as well. Decodo scales very competitively into hundreds of gigabytes, and some premium options fail to catch up even at a terabyte of data.

Standardized pricing comparison

📊 Performance Benchmarks

Infrastructure performance (April 2025)

Requests: Same as the pool test
Target: Nearest server of a global CDN (~6 KB response size)

GatewayOur server locationAvg. success rateAvg. response time
GlobalDE99.86%0.63 s
USUS99.82%0.60 s
UKDE99.66%0.61 s
EUDE99.86%0.44 s
BrazilUS99.95%0.82 s
IndiaSG99.72%0.76 s
AustraliaSG99.89%0.78 s

Comparison with other providers

Decodo’s residential proxy network performed really well, reaching a nearly perfect success rate of 99.95%. In the Global pool, they were also the fastest out of all our tested providers, establishing requests up to three times quicker than the competition. 

Mobile proxies are Decodo’s premium service made for mobile-first or toughest targets. It borrows IPs from phones and other devices on cellular connections.

🌎 Pool Size & Coverage

  • Advertised pool size: 10 million
  • Locations: 160+
  • Filtering: Random, country, state, city, ASN, OS

Decodo advertises one of the larger mobile proxy pools on the market. It includes IPs in most countries around the world. 

The product has particularly generous filtering options: you can choose not only a city, ASN, but also the desired device operating system. One caveat is that ASN and city filters can’t be used together – this is to keep the IP pool reasonably large.

Our benchmark (April 2025)

GatewayRequestsUnique IPsMobile %*
Global280k over 14 days136,27986.49%
US280k over 14 days111,52933.60%
UK280k over 14 days75,60189.15%
EU280k over 14 days84,65183.18%
Brazil280k over 14 days121,33296.31%
India280k over 14 days200,18899.76%
Australia140k over 7 days11,02567.95%

* Mobile percentage: IP2Location database, Usage type data point ( ISP/MOB, MOB IPs)

In our tests, we found plenty of unique IPs in all locations. However, the IP2Location database identified many of them as non-mobile. This primarily affected the US and Australia.

📋 Features

  • Rotation: Every request, sessions up to 24 hours
  • Protocols: HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS5
  • Concurrency: Unlimited threads & ports
  • Traffic: Plan based
  • Other: –

The mobile proxy network supports several rotation options: IPs can change with every connection request, or they can last up to 24 hours before rotating. This isn’t guaranteed and depends on the end user’s availability. Once they go offline, you automatically get a new IP address – there’s no option to wait until the same IP returns. 

Decodo doesn’t limit how many requests you can make at once, making these proxies a solid choice for large-scale web scraping, such as for ad verification purposes. 

⚙️ Integration & Use

  • Connection methods: Gateway address
  • Authentication: Credentials, IP whitelist
  • Connection format
    • Primary: us.decodo.com:10001, 10002…, au.decodo.com:30001…
    • Secondary: user-USERNAME-country-COUNTRY-city-CITY-session-ID:[email protected]:7000

Decodo’s mobile proxy network uses gateway addresses that route your requests to the end user and then the target website. You can choose from two integration formats:

1) Country endpoints. This is the default method that uses different gateways for countries and ports for sticky sessions. It’s handy when your software fails to support credential-based authentication. 

2) Backconnect gateway. You get one address and port that never changes. Any filters, such as country or sticky session, are added as parameters to the username. This approach is more flexible but also harder to use. 

In reality, the distinction isn’t always clear. For example, Decodo sometimes adds parameters to country endpoints when you choose cities. In addition, the backconnect method is necessary for country targeting with the SOCKS5 protocol. 

💵 Pricing Plans

  • Model: PAYG, subscription (monthly plans)
  • Format: Traffic
  • Modifiers: Number of whitelisted IPs, sub-users
  • Starting price: $8 for 1 GB 
  • Trial: 100 MB for 3 days, limited 14-day refund

You can get Decodo’s mobile proxies by subscribing to a plan, which start from $15 ($7.5/GB). A plan lasts for a month and updates automatically. Or, you can pay as you go at a fixed rate of $8/GB.

Like most similar products, this one charges for traffic, otherwise giving you full access to the proxy network.

Compared to the broader market, Decodo’s rates are competitive throughout most of the pricing range. All in all, you get a good deal for the package.

📊 Performance Benchmarks

Infrastructure performance (April 2025)

Target: Nearest server of a global CDN (~6 KB page size)
Our server locations: DE for Global & European pools, US for American & Brazil pools, Singapore for Indian & Australian pools

GatewayRequestsAvg. success rateAvg. response time
Global280k over 14 days99.76%0.57 s
US280k over 14 days99.94%0.68 s
UK280k over 14 days99.89%0.58 s
EU280k over 14 days99.44%0.72 s
Brazil280k over 14 days99.24%1.16 s
India280k over 14 days99.51%1.12 s
Australia140k over 7 days99.38%1.20 s

Decodo’s mobile proxies ran nearly without fail. They were also among the fastest from the providers we’ve tried. Overall, the infrastructure performance of Decodo’s mobile proxy network impressed us. 

Datacenter proxies are Decodo’s entry-level option made for efficient web scraping. Decodo offers three datacenter products: 

  1. A list of shared IPs with customizable traffic and an ability to rotate. 
  2. A list of dedicated proxies in the US.
  3. A large pool of rotating proxies.

🌎 Pool Size & Coverage

 Shared listDedicated listRotating pool
Pool sizeBased on purchased IPs
100,000
Locations
(May 2025)		16
(US, CA, BR, IT, NL, FR, DE, UK, IS, AU, IN, JP, HK, CN, SK, SG)		US10
(US, NL, RO, DE, UK, HK, CN, SK, BR, SG)
TargetingCountry level
DistributionFree choice of locations during purchaseFull access
ReplacementWeek, month, on demandOn demand: individual or full list–

The three proxy networks are pretty distinct in terms of features.

Decodo’s dedicated proxies – like most dedicated datacenter proxies – give you pretty much unlimited access to the IPs. However, there’s one big caveat: the proxies are available only in the US, with no option to specify particular cities.

The 100,000-strong rotating proxy network gives you a lot of disposable IPs that you can simplify rotate away once no longer needed. Its choice of locations includes multiple countries from four continents. If necessary, you can keep the same IP for as long as necessary.

Decodo’s shared proxies bring even more countries. It’s possible to choose where exactly you want the IPs to be located when buying a plan. (For instance, 56 proxies in the US, 32 in Australia, and the remaining 12 in Germany.)

📋 Features

 Shared listDedicated listRotating pool
RotationEvery request/static
Traffic50 GB to unlimitedUnlimitedPlan based
Concurrency1,000 to 3,000 threadsUnlimitedUnlimited
ProtocolsHTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS (with UDP)

Decodo’s datacenter proxies have the ability to rotate, but this feature is optional. Your traffic allowance will depend on the format; however, even the unlimited plans are subject to a fair use policy. All three connections protocols are supported, making these proxies compatible with a wide range of tasks. 

⚙️ Integration & Use

 Shared listDedicated listRotating pool
Connection methodGateway address
AuthenticationCredentials, IP whitelist
Connection formatuser-USERNAME-ip-198.190.6.159:PASSWORD@
dc.decodo.com:10001		USERNAME-country-gb:PASSWORD
@dc.decodo.com:10001

All three formats use gateway servers to route your requests. This means you get one address and change the port number to access different IPs. If you want to target a particular country (or IP or within the shared list), you can add a parameter to the username.

Even though both authentication methods are available, the IP whitelisting option includes fewer features. In particular, you won’t be able to easily filter proxies by location. 

💵 Pricing Plans

 Shared listDedicated listRotating pool
ModelIPs + trafficIPsTraffic
FormatSubscription
Starting price$3.5 for 100 IPs & 50 GB$7.5 for 3 IPs$30 for 50 GB
UpsellsMore traffic, threads, refreshes Non-sequential IPsMore sub-users
Trial14-day limited refund

Decodo’s datacenter proxies require getting a subscription, which lasts a month and renews automatically until cancelled. The entry price can be very wallet-friendly, starting below $10.

The dedicated plans charge only for IPs, and the rotating pool meters traffic, making their pricing models straightforward. One strange decision is charging more for non-sequential dedicated IPs, which is usually given free of charge.

The shared plans consider both IPs and traffic, and there are several upsells to consider.

For example, 100 IPs cost $3.5 with 50 GB of data allowance. Choosing 1 TB raises the price to $6.10. The unlimited traffic option has a price floor and costs a whopping $105 with the entry plan. Furthermore, you can choose automatic refresh frequency (monthly, +20%, or weekly, +80%), as well as the number of on-demand refreshes (+30% each, up to four). Finally, increasing the thread limit from 1,000 to 3,000 adds an extra 40% to the final price. 

In short, Decodo borrows heavily from Webshare’s playbook. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as it makes more basic configurations extremely affordable. In any case, Decodo’s pricing is competitive. 

📊 Performance Benchmarks

We last tested Decodo’s rotating datacenter proxies in April 2025.

Pool size & infrastructure performance

Target: Nearest server of a global CDN (~6 KB page size)
Our server location: US

GatewayRequests
Unique IPsAvg. success rateAvg. response time
US70k over 7 days30,84799.98%0.35 s

In our benchmarks, the rotating pool was fast, completed requests nearly 100% of the time, and gave us over 30,000 unique proxies in the US. In short, we were happy with its performance. 

Download speed

Target: Hetzner’s 100 MB Ashburn benchmark
Proxies tested: 10

Avg. without proxiesAverageMedianSlowest IP
52.93 MB/s2.98 MB/s0.84 MB/s0.56 MB/s

Decodo’s rotating datacenter proxies weren’t terribly fast, but they should be enough for scraping website content. Video streaming, on the other hand, may take a while. 

Like the datacenter proxies, Decodo’s ISP proxies also come in three formats. The main difference is that they work better but cost more.

🌎 Pool Size & Coverage

 Shared listDedicated listRotating pool
Pool sizeBased on purchased IPs
Not specified
Locations
(May 2025)		7
(US, UK, DE, FR, BE, PL, JP)		13
(US, CA, UK, DE, IT, NL, FR, BE, PL, AU, JP, HK, CN)		12
(US, CA, UK, DE, IT, NL, FR, BE, PL, AU, JP, HK)
TargetingCountry level
DistributionFree choice of locations during purchaseFull access

Decodo’s ISP proxy products take the same formats as the datacenter proxies: you can buy shared or dedicated lists of IPs, or simply rent the whole pool and pay for traffic. 

The list of locations here is more limited but still covers a number of high-profile countries. You can freely choose any number of countries during purchase, which is nice, but there’s no way to go further and specify a city or state. 

📋 Features

 Shared listDedicated listRotating pool
RotationEvery request/static
Traffic50 GB to unlimitedUnlimitedPlan based
ConcurrencyUnlimited
ProtocolsHTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS5 (with UDP)

All three formats have the option to rotate. Otherwise, you can keep the same proxy for as long as you like. Decodo doesn’t limit the number of threads you can establish. There’s also full SOCKS5 support. 

⚙️ Integration & Use

 Shared listDedicated listRotating pool
Connection methodGateway address
AuthenticationCredentials, IP whitelist
Connection formatBasic: isp.decodo.com:10000
Sessions: isp.decodo.com:10001, 10002…
Parameters: user-USERNAME-country-us-ip-46.202.87.168:PASSWORD
@isp.decodo.com:10001, 10002…

Decodo uses gateway servers for integration. You get one address and modify either the username or port number to change various parameters.

For example, using the port 10000 will rotate IPs with every request, while different port numbers represent sticky sessions. Username modifiers allow targeting locations, as well as individual IPs. 

Although IP whitelisting is available, it doesn’t support country targeting (as you can no longer change the username). 

💵 Pricing Plans

 Shared listDedicated listRotating pool
ModelIPs + trafficIPsTraffic
FormatSubscription
Starting price$5.64 for 10 IPs & 50 GB$10 for 3 IPs$6.5 for 1 GB
UpsellsMore traffic, sub-usersMore sub-users
Trial14-day limited refund

To acccess Decodo’s ISP proxies, you’ll have to subscribe to a monthly plan. It extends automatically until cancelled. 

The pricing model differs by format: the dedicated list charges only for IPs bought, the rotating pool measures traffic use, while the shared list considers both.

For example, you get 10 shared IPs with 50 GB, 100 GB, 300 GB, 1 TB, or unlimited monthly traffic (subject to a fair use policy). Getting a terabyte of traffic costs around 40% more compared to 50 GB. The unlimited option costs roughly thrice as much. Still, the price per IP never exceeds $1.7, which is affordable for ISP proxies. 

📊 Performance Benchmarks

We last tested Decodo’s 100 dedicated US ISP proxies in April 2025. 

Basic analysis

/24 subnetsLocation (MaxMind) Location (IP2Location)ASNs
22US (100%)US (100%)Verizon (58%), AT&T (42%)

We received proxies from 22 unique subnets. They were correctly geolocated and all came from two major internet service providers. 

IP quality

Residential percentage: IP2Location database, Usage type data point (ISP, ISP/MOB, MOB IPs)

Residential %Matching ASN & organization
57%47%

A database identified the majority of Decodo’s proxies as residential – an okay result. Furthermore, nearly a half of them had matching IP owner and ASN, which is desirable and hard to achieve with this proxy type. 

Infrastructure performance

Requests: 70,000 over 7 days
Target: Nearest server of a global CDN (~6 KB page size)
Our server location: US

Avg. success rateAvg. response time
100%0.22 s

Decodo’s infastructure performed without fail during the full seven days. The proxies also responded quickly to our requests, taking around 200 ms to return a 6KB page. 

Download speed

Target: Hetzner’s 100 MB Ashburn benchmark
Proxies tested: 10

Avg. without proxiesAverageMedianSlowest IP
52.93 MB/s45.36 MB/s39.80 MB/s32.80 MB/s

The ISP proxies we tested had enough throughput for all tasks, including 4K video streaming. 

Decodo Web Scraping APIs

Proxy networks aside, Decodo offers four web scraping APIs. You can pass them an URL, and the APIs will return its contents without fail. You won’t have to worry about managing proxy networks or overcoming website protection mechanisms. 

Web Scraping API is Decodo’s general-purpose scraper – it can extract any page without structuring the output. The other three have parsers for specific website groups, namely search engines, e-commerce stores, and social media networks.

Features

  • Targets: Universal
  • Structured data: Google, Amazon, Instagram, TikTok, Reddit
  • Locations: All countries (+ coordinates for Google, ZIP code for Amazon)
  • Headless browsers: JavaScript rendering, browser instructions, screenshots
  • Concurrency: Unlimited
  • Integration: Real-time API, async API (with batch requests), proxy API
  • Output formats: HTML, JSON (for targets with parsers)
  • Other features: Device type, custom headers, sessions

Decodo’s scrapers are rich with features. You can select any country, specify a device type, add custom headers, and pass on cookies with a session ID for multi-step scraping.

The general-purpose API accepts any URL you send it. Decodo’s specialized APIs use a parametrized request structure, meaning you can simply enter a search query, ASIN, or hashtag without forming URLs yourself. They also have target-specific parameters like domain language or co-ordinates for localized Google results.

In addition, Decodo has built specialized scrapers for various properties of major targets. For example, there’s an endpoint optimized for Google ads, Amazon product pages, or TikTok hashtags.

All three tools integrate as an API or proxy server. The first method works over an open connection, or you can fetch results via webhook with an option to send batch requests.

Pricing Plans

  • Model: Subscription
  • Format: Successful requests
  • Starting price
    • General-purpose & social media: $50 for 25k requests ($2 CPM)
    • SERP & E-Commerce: $30 for 15k requests ($2 CPM)
  • Trial: 1k requests over 7 days
Decodo’s web scraping APIs charge for successful requests, which is the industry standard. However, they don’t differentiate the rate based on additional features, such as target difficulty or headless browsing. This makes basic requests more expensive but can work to your advantage with complex targets.
You can subscribe for a month or a year at a discount. Unless you cancel it, the subscription renews automatically.
The rates aren’t the lowest on the market, but they tend to scale pretty well. Social Media Scraping API, however, is a bargain: you can get data from challenging targets like Instagram for $2 per 1,000 requests or less. Few competitors offer social media scrapers at all due to litigation risk, let alone this cheap.

Performance Benchmarks

We last tested Decodo’s APIs in January 2023, for our research on web scraping APIs.

Test #1: Google (10,800 requests over 7 days)

 Avg. success rateAvg. response time
Unparsed 100%6.09 s
Parsed99.85%6.04 s

Decodo’s SERP scraper performed flawlessly with Google: it returned nearly all of our requests, and enabling data parsing had no effect on the response time.

Test #2: Amazon (1,000 requests)

Avg. success rateAvg. response time
100%4.69 s

Amazon posed no challenge as well. The scraper was even faster compared to Google, despite Amazon having much bigger page sizes.

Test #3: Photo-focused social media network (500 requests to each)

 Avg. success rateAvg. response time
GraphQL
100%8.95 s
Headless100%29.09 s

The results with social media were also perfect. One weak spot was response time with JavaScript rendering enabled – it slowed down the scraper significantly.

How to Use Decodo

Decodo is one of the easier providers to use. It supports self-service, doesn’t take long to set up, and has user-friendly tools to help you work with proxies.

Registration

To register with Decodo, you’ll need to enter an email and password, and then verify your email address. Alternatively, you can sign up with a Google account. 

It’s possible to access the dashboard without verifying an email address, but you won’t be able to buy anything until you do.

KYC and Usage Policies

Decodo does have a KYC procedure, but you only need to undergo it if you trigger the provider’s safeguards. 

Otherwise, identity verification is necessary to unblock sensitive target groups: business domains likely Grammarly or Uber, streaming platforms like Netflix or Twitch, and mailing services like Yahoo and Live.

Decodo denies access to underage users or customers located in Russia.

decodo kyc procedure
Completing the KYC unlocks more websites.

Dashboard

Decodo’s dashboard includes all the necessary functionality to manage proxies by yourself. You can buy plans, set up proxies and scrapers, track usage, get help, and more. 

Most of the controls are separated by product. There are sections for proxy types and web scraping tools which lead to individual products. For example, to reach mobile proxies, I’d need to click on the Residential proxies drop-down and select them from the available options.

You can get a quick overview of your services on the dashboard’s main screen: see your current plan, top targets, and traffic use. However, it’s once again dedicated to one product at a time.

There are introductory tutorials and guidance all around to help you get acquainted. For example, you can enter a desired use case, feature, or even target and get a product recommendation. They significantly simplify onboarding. 

decodo dashboard home decodo recommendation tool

Decodo supports full self-service for each product. You can buy a plan in two ways. The first is by making a direct purchase with your credit card, PayPal, or another payment method. Alternatively, you can add money to the Decodo wallet first and then use it for purchases. This enables paying as you go.

Decodo has a separate Billing section where you can see the payment history, download invoices, view and modify all active plans. It’s also the place to top up your wallet balance.

decodo wallet decodo transactions

Decodo offers team access to its platform. You can invite team members with one of three permissioned roles: admin, billing, or user. Most of the proxy networks also support sub-users with traffic limits. The number of sub-users you can create depends on the plan; Decodo lets you buy more for $10 per slot. 

You can set up the proxy servers using dashboard widgets. They let you specify the main parameters (location, rotation, protocol), then generate a proxy list and code samples in multiple programming languages. Overall, they’re straightforward to use. 

In the same way, Decodo’s scraping APIs include a playground where you can select parameters, send test requests, and receive code snippets for integration into your script. 

decodo dashboard team access decodo dashboard sub-users decodo dashboard proxy setup decodo api playground

Decodo’s dashboard includes visual graphs where you can see how much traffic or requests you’ve expended. You can filter the graphs by sub-user, date, country, domain, and connection protocol, depending on the product. The timeframes are 24 hours, week, month, or custom.

Alternatively, you can fetch traffic expenditure statistics using an API call.

decodo stats decodo dashboard notifications

API Access

Decodo offers a fleshed-out API for controlling its proxies programmatically. The API is available for every user, not only resellers. Its functions include creating and managing sub-users, setting traffic limits, viewing usage reports and subscription status, and filtering available endpoints. 

Documentation

Decodo has got the documentation part down. You’ll find a plethora of instructions covering various aspects of the service:

  • a detailed start guide that explains all the concepts and features,
  • an FAQ divided into multiple sections by topics,
  • integration guides for major bots and automation tools,
  • and configuration guides for web browsers and operating systems.


There’s also a separate hub for technical documentation with tips & tricks, code samples, and troubleshooting. Some of the content has become outdated, but the documentation is handled well in general.

smartproxy documentation hub
Decodo's documentation hub.

Hands-On Support

Decodo’s customer service is available round the clock via email or live chat. The main language is English, though the support can also speak Chinese – and, of course, other languages via Google Translate.

Whenever we’ve had to interact with the support agents, we received quick (think nearly instant) and competent responses. In 2020, we even gave Decodo an award to acknowledge its customer service. It remains excellent to this day and can be considered one of the provider’s strongest points.

Conclusion

Having read this far, I hope you can see where I was coming from in the introduction.

Decodo really has struck something great. The company has responsive customer support, performant proxies, and everything set up for convenient self-service.

To be fair, compared to something like Bright Data or Oxylabs, it’s nothing special. But this is without considering Decodo’s final ace – it somehow manages to achieve all this while keeping prices very competitive.

Of course, not everything is perfect. Some corners had to be cut, and you may find services like Decodo’s dedicated proxies – or in some cases, its web scraping APIs – limited.

But that’s the whole point of Decodo: the company focuses on the functionality that is good enough for the majority of users at the expense of some nice-to-have or niche features. And it is damn good at that.

Based on my experience with Decodo, I can recommend it to anyone looking for a great proxy provider.

Decodo Alternatives

Oxylabs logo
Rating 9.3 / 10
★★★★★ 4.6/5

Oxylabs is like a premium version of Decodo. It controls a significantly larger IP pool, and you can get specialized APIs that simplify web scraping.

Visit Oxylabs

Read the review

Bright Data logo
Rating 9.3 / 10
★★★★★ 4.7/5

Bright Data is another strong option with more features and powerful proxy management tools. It also sells proxy-based web scraping APIs and complete data sets.

Visit Bright Data

Read the review

black soax logo
Rating 9 / 10
★★★★★ 4.5/5

SOAX offers similar features and performance to Decodo. The proxy pool may be smaller and less diverse, but it comes at a slightly lower price point. 

Visit SOAX

Read the review

Want more? View the full list of the Decodo alternatives.

Recommended for:

Anyone looking for a great balance between features and price.

Try Decodo

Try 100 MB for free.

decodo logo black
Rating 9.3 / 10
★★★★★ 4.7/5
Try Decodo

Try 100 MB for free.

Picture of Adam Dubois
Adam Dubois
Proxy geek and developer.

The post Decodo (formerly Smartproxy) Review appeared first on Proxyway.

]]> https://proxyway.com/reviews/smartproxy-proxies/feed 20 Oxylabs Review https://proxyway.com/reviews/oxylabs-proxies https://proxyway.com/reviews/oxylabs-proxies#comments Wed, 26 Jul 2023 11:53:02 +0000 https://stage-web2.proxyway.com/?post_type=reviews&p=8868 Oxylabs Review The best enterprise proxy provider on the market The sheer scale and performance of Oxylabs’ proxy networks has few equals. Coupled with advanced web scraping tools and professional customer service, it can meet the data collection needs of any business. Rating 9.3 / 10 ★★★★★ 4.6/5 Use the code proxyway35 to get 35% off […]

The post Oxylabs Review appeared first on Proxyway.

]]>
White oxylabs logo

Oxylabs Review

The best enterprise proxy provider on the market

The sheer scale and performance of Oxylabs’ proxy networks has few equals. Coupled with advanced web scraping tools and professional customer service, it can meet the data collection needs of any business.

Rating 9.3 / 10
★★★★★ 4.6/5

Use the code proxyway35 to get 35% off your first purchase.

Visit Oxylabs

Oxylabs is a major proxy provider that competes with services like Bright Data and NetNut for business clients. It’s currently the best-rated company on this website, and one that received our Best Proxies for Enterprise award in 2024. These two details indicate that we consider the provider to be a very strong pick – maybe even for smaller projects that require quality infrastructure.

In this review, we’ll go through Oxylabs’ main products to see how they fare against the alternatives. In addition to a general overview, you’ll find detailed performance benchmarks based on several weeks of testing. Let’s go!

News about Oxylabs

Oxylabs Launches a Product Suite for Video Data

High bandwidth proxies, YouTube API & video datasets aim to satiate AI’s demand for multimodal data.
  • Provider News

OxyCon 2024: A Recap

Our impressions from Oxylabs’ fifth annual web scraping conference.
  • Conferences

Oxylabs Unifies Scraper Line-Up, Introduces AI Copilot

Inspired by a certain dev platform, the feature can structure any website using natural language instructions.
  • Provider News
Read all news

General Information

CountryLithuania 
Founded 2015
Proxy networks

Datacenter (dedicated, rotating)
ISP (shared, dedicated)
Residential
Mobile
Proxy API (Web Unblocker)

Other servicesGeneral-purpose, SERP, e-commerce APIs
Datasets
Supporting toolsChrome, Android extensions
Price rangePremium
Starting price$8
Payment methodsCredit card, wire transfer, AliPay, PayPal
Trial7 days for companies, 3-day refund

Oxylabs is a Lithuanian proxy provider running since 2015. It’s one of the biggest companies in the field, offering all kinds of proxy services and several data collection APIs that can help you scrape just about any target.

Oxylabs primarily targets business clients. This reflects everywhere: from a prim and tidy website, to a list of certifications on the homepage and a dedicated account manager. Heck, its products even have insurance! – that’s a first for a proxy company. However, that also means you’ll be paying above-average prices.

This orientation toward enterprises means that Oxylabs would like to lock you into a long-term contract and foster the relationship through account managers. But lately, the provider has been opening up its platform, putting increasing emphasis on self-service and cheaper entry plans.

As a company, Oxylabs invests much effort into business ethics. The provider has made a framework for ethical proxy acquisition and that it’s a member of the Ethical Web Data Collection Initiative (you can read our interviews on proxy ethicality and KYC guidelines). In addition, Oxylabs partners with governmental and non-profit organizations through projects like 4beta.

Oxylabs Proxy Networks

Oxylabs offers all four kinds of proxy servers:

  • Datacenter proxies, which you can get dedicated in lists from over 180 countries, or in shared pool covering around 10 locations. 
  • ISP (static residential) proxies, available in shared or dedicated lists in several locations. 
  • Residential proxies from any country around the world. 
  • Mobile proxies with global coverage that borrow the resources of real devices. 
oxylabs proxy networks
Oxylabs' proxy networks, including the proxy API Web Unblocker.

We cover individual proxy types in the expandable drop-downs below:

Oxylabs controls the largest network of datacenter proxies in the world – over 2 million IPs from nearly 8,000 subnets. You can get them in two formats:

  1. Dedicated proxy list for your exclusive use.
  2. Rotating proxy pool with thousands of shared IPs in multiple locations.

Features

 DedicatedRotating
FormatIP list / gateway server (self-service customers)Proxy pool with 29,000 IPs
Locations188 with city selection
(8 in self-service)		8 in the US, Europe & Asia
RotationAvailable, optionalEvery request, 30 mins
ThreadsUnlimited
TrafficUnlimitedPlan based
SOCKS5✅❌
AuthenticationCredentials, IP whitelistCredentials
OtherChoice of subnets (enterprise customers) 

Oxylabs’ dedicated datacenter proxies look impressive. They have nearly no limitations, support SOCKS5, and come from over 150 locations, with an ability to specify states and cities. 

With a stock of 2 million IPs, you can scale as much as you need. What’s more, this ensures high IP diversity, which is always welcome for avoiding subnet and ASN-related bans.

Part of the functionality becomes unavailable if you choose the self-service approach. It covers only eight countries and foregoes more precise targeting; on the other hand, Oxylabs includes an optional rotation feature for those who need it.  

The shared rotating proxies revolve around (no pun intended) the US: there are 10,000 IPs there. Western European countries like the UK and France include 2,000 each, while most Asian locations have 1,000. The service is intended for web scraping, so it can switch IP addresses with each connection request or create limited duration sessions. Compared to the dedicated proxies, there’s no SOCKS5 or city selection.

Pricing Plans

 DedicatedRotating
ModelSubscription
FormatIPsTraffic
Starting price$8.25 for 3 IPs ($2.75/IP)$50 for 77 GB ($0.65/GB)
Price modifiersDomains, non-US locations (enterprise plans)–
Self-service✅✅
Trial7 days for companies3-day refund

Both dedicated and rotating proxies use a subscription-based pricing model. It renews automatically after the billing period.

Oxylabs’ dedicated service bases its rates on the number of IPs you get. The rates range between $2.75/IP to $1.9/IP once you buy 1000 or more proxies. 

Looking at the advertised rates, Oxylabs costs somewhat above the market average until you scale up. You’re allowed to replace 20% of the proxies per quarter without paying.

The rotating proxies charge only for traffic use. Starting at $.65/GB and reaching $.44/GB at scale, they cost in line with the competition. 

Performance Benchmarks

We last tested Oxylabs’ rotating proxy pool in March 2024.

#1: Infrastructure performance

We ran 50,000 connection requests using Oxylabs’ US-filtered rotating proxies. Our computer was located in the US. We targeted a global CDN – it pinged a server nearest to the proxy IP and had a response size of several kilobytes.

Avg. success rateAvg. response time
99.99%0.28 s
Oxylabs’ rotating proxy network worked flawlessly. Its infrastructure shouldn’t interrupt your data extraction operation, even if you scrape round the clock. Futhermore, these are among the fastest rotating proxies we’ve tried, outpacing most competitors in our annual market research.

#2: Download speed

We tested 10 rotating IPs using Hetzner’s 100 MB Ashburn download speed benchmark.

Avg. without proxies Avg. download speed  Slowest IP 
32.56 MB/s   17.51 MB/s 2.30 MB/s 
Oxylabs’ rotating proxy servers should be fast enough for high-definition video streaming or other taxing uses. Even the slowest IP address managed to reach respectable throughput.  

#3: Performance with popular targets

We made ~2,600 connection requests to each target using US proxies and a non-headless Python scraper. Our computer was located in Germany. Note that your results may differ based on your web scraping setup.

 Success rateResponse time
Amazon44.82% 2.40 s 
Google 97.29%1.13 s
Homedepot 92.56%0.75 s 
Total 78.22%1.43 s 

The proxies performed surprisingly well for datacenter and furthermore – shared IPs. They were able to open Google with very few failures, though this likely wouldn’t be sustainable at scale. Amazon proved a harder but still reasonable nut to crack. 

Residential proxies are Oxylabs’ main proxy product, with one of the largest pools on the market. These IPs are sourced via Honeygain (a bandwidth-sharing app), direct partnerships with ISPs, and app developers.

Pool Size & Coverage

Advertised pool sizeLocationsTargeting options
100 millionGlobalGlobal, country, state, city, ASN, ZIP, coordinates

Oxylabs advertises to control over 100 million proxy servers. Of course, these being residential proxies, you shouldn’t expect all of the IPs to be available at the same time. 

You can choose from any country in the world and then further narrow down the parameters. Oxylabs is very generous in the IP filtering department, letting you choose not only a city but also ZIP code and even coordinates. 

Having said that, some filters can’t be combined together for now. For example, it’s either country or ASN, which may be limiting. 

Features

RotationTrafficConcurrencyOther
Every request, 1-30 mins
Plan basedUnlimited threads & ports–

These proxies can rotate without every connection requests, or you can establish sticky sessions. It’s possible to specify any duration between one and 30 minutes. 

Like most residential proxy networks, this one meters traffic use. However, the number of connection requests you can make is effectively unlimited. 

Integration & Use

Connection methodFormatSecondary formatProtocolsAuthentication
Gateway addresscustomer-USERNAME
-cc-us-st-us_new_york-
city-new_york-
sessid-ID-sesstime-10:
[email protected]:7777		customer-
USERNAME:PASSWORD
@us-pr.
oxylabs.io:10001		HTTP
HTTPS
SOCKS5		Credentials
IP whitelisting

Oxylabs’ residential proxies use the format of endpoint:port which distributes requests through geographically close load balancers before reaching the proxy device. Customers in China get two separate endpoints for better connectivity.

You actually get two ways to access the service. The first, called Country entry, modifies the gateway address based on your chosen country and generates different port numbers for sticky sessions. It’s simple to implement but also limited: you can’t specify anything beyond a country or create sessions with a custom duration. 

Another way, called Backconnect entry, uses one gateway address that never changes. Instead, you can modify the username with various parameters. Though more complex, it enables all functionality, such as filtering by a ZIP code.

As of mid-2023, the residential proxies support the SOCKS5 protocol. However, it’s limited to TCP and website traffic for now. 

Pricing Plans

ModelFormatModifiersStarting priceTrial
PAYG, subscriptionPay per traffic–$8 for 1 GB7 days for companies, 3-day refund

Oxylabs charges for traffic only. You can pay as you go at a fixed rate of $8/GB – this method lets you buy up to 50 GB of traffic per month. Otherwise, the cheapest plan starts at $99 ($7.75/GB). If you reach the cap of any plan, there’s an option to top up without getting a new plan.

Compared to the market prices, Oxylabs charges a premium. But the provider’s rates aren’t that bad in this category: it costs less than Bright Data, especially if you need precise location targeting, and significantly less compared to NetNut.

Performance Benchmarks

We last tested Oxylabs’ residential proxies in March 2024, for the annual Proxy Market Research.

#1: Pool size & composition

GatewayParametersUnique IPsResidential %*
Global1.2M req, 21 days861,20997.31% 
US560k req, 14 days280,640 93.77%
UK560k req, 14 days100,830 97.71% 
EU** 1.2M req, 14 days446,700 98.00%
Brazil560k req, 14 days336,679 97.76%
India560k req, 14 days400,581 98.24%
Australia 140k req, 7 days33,817 97.85%

* IP2Location database, Usage type data point, ISP, ISP/MOB, MOB IPs.
** Combines Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands.

oxylabs residential global pool comparison march 2024 residential country pool comparison

Oxylabs can evidently back up its marketing claims. 3 out of 4 requests gave us a unique IP address in the Global gateway, and we found over 250k American IPs. Even in Australia, where proxies are to come by, Oxylabs was able to produce over 30,000 IP addresses.

And while this isn’t the very best result looking at our comparisons, Oxylabs came in very close. Its pool should be enough even for the largest customers. 

#2: IP quality

We checked 20,000 proxies in the Global pool and 10,000 proxies in the US using the IPQualityScore database.

 Avg. fraud scoreProxy %Frequent abuser
Global38.9842.03%674
US43.3245.23%1,020
oxylabs residential fraud score global comparison oxylabs residential fraud score us comparison

For a large and popular provider, Oxylabs’ proxies had seen surprisingly little abuse. IPQualityScore also identified very few frequent abusers, which shows that the pool is being kept clean. All in all, these are great results. 

#3: Infrastructure performance

This benchmark shared the same parameters as the pool test. Our scraper was located in Germany for the Global pool, and we also had scrapers in the US and Singapore for individual country pools. We targeted a global CDN – it pinged a server nearest to the proxy IP and had a response size of several kilobytes.

GatewayAvg. success rateAvg. response time
Random99.82%0.41 s
US99.68%0.57 s
UK99.75%0.39 s
EU99.70%0.42 s
Brazil99.17%1.12 s
India99.06%0.97 s
Australia99.79%0.63 s
oxylabs residential success rate comparison march 2024 oxylabs residential response time comparison march 2024

These residential proxies were incredibly performant. Oxylabs’ infrastructure let us down very few times, and its latency was simply amazing for residential addresses. The provider was faster than all competitors in our tests, sometimes by as many as five times!

#3: Performance with popular targets

We made ~2,600 connection requests to each target using US-filtered proxies and a non-headless Python scraper. Our computer was located in Germany. Note that your results may differ based on your web scraping setup.

WebsiteAvg. success rateAvg. response time
Amazon96.80%3.94 s
GoogleBlocked*
Social media98.38%3.16 s
Total97.59%3.55 s

* Google is disabled by default and becomes available after a client review.

The residential proxies were able to access all tested websites smoothly. Unfortunately, we didn’t test them with Google – but that’s a managerial rather than technical limitation.

Once again, this is one of the largest mobile proxy services we know. It’s based on a peer-to-peer model, meaning that your connections will be routed through the devices of real people on cellular networks. 

Pool Size & Coverage

Advertised pool sizeLocationsTargeting options
20 millionGlobalGlobal, country, state, city, coordinates

The mobile proxy network supports the majority of features customers could look for. You can select any country and further filter proxies by state or ASN (carrier), and even co-ordinates.

Features

RotationTrafficConcurrencyOther
Every request, 1-30 minsPlan basedUnlimited threads & ports–

Being peer-to-peer proxies, they meter traffic and need to rotate. You can select to do that every connection request or create sessions. There’s no limit for parallel connections, so you can use as many IPs at once as you like.

Integration & Use

Connection methodFormatSecondary formatProtocolsAuthentication
Gateway addresscustomer-USERNAME-cc-us-st-us_new_york-city-new_york-sessid-0252000842-sesstime-10:[email protected]:7777customer-USERNAME:[email protected]:10001HTTP
HTTPS
SOCKS5		Credentials
IP whitelisting

Just like the residential proxy service, Oxylabs’ mobile network gives you two ways to access it. 

The first method changes the gateway address for country selection and uses different port numbers to establish sticky sessions. It’s easier to use but also fails to include the more advanced targeting options (city, ASN, etc.).

The second method uses a single backconnect entry gateway and adds parameters to the username. It’s more flexible, allowing you to make use of Oxylabs’ full functionality. 

As of recently, the provider enabled the SOCKS5 protocol. However, it only supports web traffic over TCP. 

Pricing Plans

ModelFormatModifiersStarting priceTrial
PAYG, subscriptionPay per traffic–$9 for 1 GB7 days for companies, 3-day refund

You can get Oxylabs’ mobile proxies by subscribing to a plan, which start from $99 ($8.25/GB). Or, you can buy up to 50 GB of traffic without a subscription at a fixed rate of $9/GB. In any case, any unused traffic expires after a month.

If your needs are large, it naturally makes sense to get a plan. The largest option on display ($3,000) brings the price down to $5/GB. This is only a little more compared to residential proxies. In a broader context, Oxylabs costs less than its enterprise-grade peers. 

Performance Benchmarks

We last tested Oxylabs’ mobile proxies in March 2024.

#1: Pool size & composition

We ran 280,000 requests over 14 days using the unfiltered pool and country pools, and 140,000 connection requests over 7 days using the Australian pool. We enriched IP data with the IP2Location database.

GatewayParametersUnique IPsResidential %*
Global280k req, 14 days183,94097.88%
US280k req, 14 days70,56594.11%
UK280k req, 14 days23,32697.92%
EU**280k req, 14 days110,34897.97%
Brazil280k req, 14 days176,68697.35%
India280k req, 14 days175,04599.52%
Australia 140k req, 7 days6,24394.31%

* IP2Location database, Usage type data point, ISP/MOB, MOB IPs.
** Combines Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands.

oxylabs mobile pool comparison march 2024 mobile country pool comparison mobile country pool comparison filtered
Oxylabs’ mobile proxy pool is large and truthful to its claims. With over 70,000 unique IPs in the US, the network should be relatively clean and able to support even large-scale tasks. Oxylabs also had more IPs in major European locations than any other provided we tested.

#2: Infrastructure performance

This benchmark shared the same parameters as the pool test. Our computer was located in Germany for the Global pool, and we also had computers in the US and Singapore for individual country pools. We targeted a global CDN – it pinged a server nearest to the proxy IP and had a response size of several kilobytes.

GatewayAvg. success rateAvg. response time
Random98.41%0.89 s
US95.44%1.43 s
UK97.54%1.13 s
EU97.12%1.16 s
Brazil92.09%2.54 s
India92.60%1.89 s
Australia97.75%1.29 s
oxylabs mobile success rate comparison march 2024 oxylabs mobile response time comparison march 2024

The mobile proxy network had a high connection success rate that was up to par with the industry. Some individual country pools, however, failed more than we’d have liked.

The proxy network was also faster than all but one competitor, often significantly so. There were exceptions: NetNut and Infatica performed very well in the US, but their pools weren’t exactly mobile. 

#3: Performance with popular targets

We made ~2,600 connection requests to each target using US-filtered proxies. Our computer was located in the US. Note that your results may differ based on your web scraping setup.

WebsiteAvg. success rateAvg. response time
Amazon91.96%6.00 s
Google86.94%2.99 s 
Social Media92.06% 6.36 s
Total90.32%5.12 s

The target benchmarks mimicked Oxylabs’ infrastructure results, which is to say they were solid. Requests took twice longer to complete compared to the residential network, but this is completely normal for this proxy type. 

How to Use Oxylabs

This part runs through what it’s like to use Oxylabs. It showcases the registration procedure, dashboard, proxy setup, and avenues for support.

Registration

You can start using Oxylabs in three ways. First, there’s the usual route: fill in a registration form, confirm your email, and you’re done. The second option is to use your Google account to sign up.

The third method is aimed at businesses: instead of simply creating an account, you can choose to contact sales. This will require entering your full name, business email, phone number, and industry. Afterwards, a salesman will get in touch and discuss the options with you. 

In any case, you’ll have to go through a KYC procedure before you can start using the services. It’s a standard practice with premium proxy providers.

oxylabs registration page
The registration form. Step 2 asks for contact details, Step 3 is your use case.

Dashboard

When you log in, you’ll find yourself in the Oxylabs dashboard. It has a main window with information about product use and links to resources, separate sections for each product, a section for subscription management, and a tab for setting usage limits. 

The sections expand into smaller sub-sections with more options. For instance, Residential Proxies lets you track proxy usage, manage authorization settings, access the public API and relevant documentation. My Account shows your active products and invoices. 

If you need help, there’s a button to contact an account manager. The button leads to an email, so it’s not very useful in emergencies. For that, there’s another button on the right that connects you to a support agent over live chat.

Oxylabs also allows multi-user access to the platform by setting up team roles. For example, you can give a colleague the permission to access proxy settings but not financial information – and vice versa. 

The dashboard is available in English and Chinese.

oxylabs dashboard home page
The dashboard's main screen.

Subscription Management

Oxylabs supports self-service for some but not all of its products. You can buy the other products by contacting sales.

There’s no wallet functionality, so you’ll have to make a transaction every time a plan renews. This isn’t ideal but also not a huge problem, as you’ll likely be making payments monthly.

The dashboard shows how much time remains until the subscription renews. It also contains a list of downloadable invoices.

oxylabs dashboard invoices
My invoices for the residential proxy service.

Proxy Management

Oxylabs offers handy widgets to aid with proxy setup. They let you select the main parameters (location, rotation, etc.) one by one and then generate any number of endpoints you specify.

Some products, like the rotating datacenter proxies, don’t have a widget. The same applies to more advanced features like ZIP code filtering. In those cases, you’ll have to head to Oxylabs’ documentation page and follow the instructions there. Thankfully, it’s rich with information and provides useful examples. 

Oxylabs dashboard residential setup oxylabs documentation

Usage Tracking

You’ll find usage graphs in the dashboard. Their functionality differs by product type.

The rotating proxy networks focus on traffic use, though they also show the number of requests you’ve made. You can filter them by sub-user, country, and domain.

Surprisingly, the static proxy networks have the most detailed usage statistics. They track not only traffic use and the number of requests made but also HTML codes. You can select to filter data by country, target, subnet, IP, and more.

All usage graphs allow selecting custom data ranges. This is convenient considering that some providers limit them to a few pre-sets.

Residential proxy usage graphs dedicated proxy usage stats serp api usage graph

Public API

If you want to access the IPs programmatically, Oxylabs has several public APIs. The residential API focuses on managing access and tracking use. The datacenter API allows retrieving proxy lists, whitelisting IP addresses, and monitoring offline proxies. 

Documentation

For non-technical questions, Oxylabs provides an FAQ called Learning Hub. It answers the most frequently encountered queries and is aimed at prospective or new users. Newbies can also read multiple quick-start guides which provide the main information about a particular product in one place.

The technical documentation includes comprehensive usage instructions for each of Oxylabs’ products. The instructions have examples in multiple programming languages, and you can find integration guides with third party software.

oxylabs residential learning hub oxylabs quick start guides oxylabs documentation integration

Hands-On Support

Oxylabs gives each enterprise client a dedicated account manager who answers all of your questions via email or chat. Outside of working hours, or if you need technical help, you can request instant help from the customer support team. The support speaks English, Russian, Chinese, and Lithuanian.

In any case, communication is smooth and professional. Even when we asked technical questions, we got fast and well-explained answers.

We also tested how fast the customer support is and asked a question via live chat. The reply came in about 2 minutes, which is hard to beat.

Conclusion

For a long time, our position was as follows: if you fall into Oxylabs’ target audience (read: you’re an enterprise customer that needs quality products and prefers human interaction), you won’t be disappointed. 

This stand true. Oxylabs remains performant, highly scalable, and sporting an excellent team of account managers to help you thrive. 

At the same time, the provider has begun opening up to a broader audience. It’s now possible to buy most products without going through sales, and the plans start from two or even one figure. You’ll still be paying a premium, but the price is well justified. 

In the end, it all boils down to two questions: do you need the best proxy service available and will you make full use of it? If yes, then you might have just found yourself a proxy provider.

Oxylabs Alternatives

smartproxy-logo
Rating 9.3 / 10
★★★★★ 4.7/5

Smartproxy is the first place to go if Oxylabs is out of your budget range. It offers similar performance, great user experience, and proxy-based tools. However, there are fewer features.

Visit Smartproxy

Read the review

Bright Data logo
Rating 9.3 / 10
★★★★★ 4.7/5

Bright Data is another strong option with more features and powerful proxy management tools. It also sells proxy-based web scraping APIs and even complete data sets.

Visit Bright Data

Read the review

black soax logo
Rating 9 / 10
★★★★★ 4.5/5

SOAX is another alternative for SMBs eyeing a reliable service. It has a smaller but stable pool of residential & mobile IPs with very flexible filtering options out of the box.

Visit SOAX

Read the review

Want more? View the full list of the Oxylabs alternatives.

Oxylabs logo
Rating 9.3 / 10
★★★★★ 4.6/5
Try Oxylabs
Use the code proxyway35 to get 35% off your first purchase.

Recommended for:

Anyone considering a premium provider for serious proxy use.

Try Oxylabs
Use the code proxyway35 to get 35% off your first purchase.
Picture of Adam Dubois
Adam Dubois
Proxy geek and developer.

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]]> https://proxyway.com/reviews/oxylabs-proxies/feed 16 Bright Data Review https://proxyway.com/reviews/bright-data-proxies https://proxyway.com/reviews/bright-data-proxies#comments Wed, 26 Jul 2023 13:06:31 +0000 https://stage-web2.proxyway.com/?post_type=reviews&p=8939 Bright Data Review The jack of all trades. Bright Data has many features and an impressive data collection infrastructure. However, its prices and usage terms are not for everyone. Rating 9.3 / 10 ★★★★★ 4.7/5 Visit Bright Data Add up to $500 to your account, and Bright Data will double the amount. When it comes […]

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Bright Data logo

Bright Data Review

The jack of all trades.

Bright Data has many features and an impressive data collection infrastructure. However, its prices and usage terms are not for everyone.

Rating 9.3 / 10
★★★★★ 4.7/5
Visit Bright Data

Add up to $500 to your account, and Bright Data will double the amount.

When it comes to proxies, Bright Data is one of those default options that you compare others against. It has everything for everyone (minus the shadier use cases), a proven history, and strong brand visibility. The company also offers robust management tools for enterprise clients, constantly reinforcing them with novel features. For this, it received our Most Innovative Provider award in 2023 and Best Platform for Proxies in 2024.

So, is Bright Data a no-brainer? Not necessarily. Despite all it offers, the company can’t be the best in all scenarios. That’s where cheaper or more specialized providers find their opportunity to slip through. And in recent years, the competition has only become tougher, especially in Bright Data’s prized enterprise segment. 

Today, we’ll try to identify those cracks and how they can impact your decision. The review includes general information, as well as in-depth performance benchmarks based on weeks of testing. Let’s begin!

News about Bright Data

Bright Data Changes Scraper Prices, Calls Web Unlocker an API

The provider’s products now cost either 50% more or 50% less, depending on which you use.
  • Provider News

Bright Data Equalizes Residential and Mobile Proxy Rates

In essence, the provider’s mobile proxies just got 65% cheaper.
  • Provider News

ScrapeCon 2024: A Recap

Our impressions from Bright Data’s first virtual conference on web scraping.
  • Conferences
Read all news

General Information

  • Country: Israel
  • Founded: 2014
  • Proxy networks: Datacenter, ISP, residential, mobile, proxy API (general-purpose, search engines)
  • Other services: Web Scraper IDE, Scraping Browser, Datasets, E-Commerce insights
  • Supporting tools: Browser extension, proxy manager
  • Price range: Premium
  • Starting price: $1
  • Payment methods: Credit card, PayPal, wire transfer, Alipay, Payoneer
  • Trial: 7 days for companies

Bright Data is an Israeli provider of data collection infrastructure established in 2014. It’s currently owned by a UK-based equity firm called EMK Capital. The company offers access to every kind of proxy server, multiple data collection APIs, a cloud-based tool for developing scrapers on Bright Data’s infrastructure, and even pre-collected data sets.

Most old-timers remember Bright Data by a different name, Luminati. The company rebranded in early 2021, citing negative connotations associated with the name. (To be fair, Luminati does sound awfully familiar to a famous organization.)

Being a general-purpose provider, Bright Data tries to serve every use case it deems acceptable. The list includes many forms of web scraping for price comparison, SEO, and other purposes – even sneaker copping is on the table. But as far as proxy providers go, Bright Data is considered very strict, and it won’t hesitate to deny questionable uses.

Bright Data was one of the first services to introduce residential proxies – IPs borrowed from computers and phones of real people. At the time when most competitors still sold datacenter IPs, this gave the company a big advantage and allowed it to grow into a leading proxy provider. Despite tightening competition, Bright Data remains one to this day, boasting top universities and Fortune 500 companies among its clients.

Bright Data also cares deeply about the ethical aspect of sourcing and using proxies. It was among the first to openly talk about how it acquires residential IPs. What’s more, it has strict procedures for vetting customers and preventing abuse (you can watch our video interview on ethics with Bright Data’s CEO here). The company even went as far as to reduce its proxy pool by 10% to cut off unethical partners. Despite this, Bright Data has had its share of controversy over the years, such as with Hola VPN or piracy app Mobdro.

For the last few years, Bright Data has been expanding its scope of services. While proxies remain important, they now have to share focus with other tools. Bright Data’s end goal is to become the go-to source for web data, whether you’re a developer or a company with no web scraping experience.

Bright Data Proxy Networks

Bright Data offers all four kinds of proxy servers:

  • Datacenter proxies from cloud hosting providers. They’re available in around 100 locations in shared, dedicated lists, or a pool of IPs.
  • ISP (static residential) proxies which are hosted in data centers but associated with residential ISPs. They come from around 50 locations in the same formats as the datacenter service.
  • Residential proxies from every country in the world. One of Bright Data’s unique selling points is dedicated residential IPs – they ensure exclusive access to a group of proxies with the same parameters.
  • Mobile proxies of the peer-to-peer variety, also available worldwide.
bright data proxy networks
Bright Data's proxy networks.

In brief, whatever you may need, Bright Data has it. We explore each proxy type below:

Residential proxies are Bright Data’s main proxy product. The provider sources these IPs – as well as mobile proxies – through Bright VPN, the bandwidth-sharing application EarnApp, and developers that add an SDK to their software.

Pool Size & Coverage

  • Advertised pool size: 72 million
  • Locations: Global
  • Targeting options: Global, country, state, city, ASN, ZIP code, coordinates, OS

Bright Data controls a network of 72 million monthly residential IPs. For a long while, it used to be the largest proxy pool on the market, and it still remains among the biggest options.

The residential proxies can be found in any country worldwide. We haven’t personally tested all of them, but we’re inclined to believe the provider’s claims. You get a huge number targeting options to choose from, and they can also be combined together (for example, city + ASN). This is great.

Features

  • Rotation: Every request, as long as available (customizable with Proxy Manager)
  • Traffic: Plan based
  • Concurrency: Unlimited threads & ports
  • Other: Request caching, dedicated IPs

Bright Data’s residential proxies are stacked with features. The rotation options, while basic using only the dashboard, become highly customizable once you fire up the provider’s proxy manager. There’s also a toggle to receive only IPs with a long proven uptime. 

There are no concurrency limits, as long as you have enough balance in your account.

In addition, Bright Data offers some unique features. For example, you can opt to receive cached pages if someone had opened those URLs within several hours. This will return results faster and reduce your expenditure by 5%. Or, you can get a group of IPs with identical parameters for your exclusive use with certain domains.

Integration & Use

  • Connection method: Gateway address
  • Connection format: brd.superproxy.io:22225 –proxy-user brd-customer-USERNAME-zone-residential-country-us-city-newyork-asn-209:PASSWORD
  • Protocols: HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS5
  • Authentication: Credentials, IP whitelisting

Liko most residential proxy networks, this one provides a gateway address. It routes your requests through Bright Data’s dozens of geographically distributed load balancers before reaching the end device.

In addition to HTTP, you can connect using the HTTPS and SOCKS5 protocols. Bright Data has more ports open than the standard 80 and 443 by default, and you can request more by contacting customer support.  

Pricing Plans

  • Model: Pay as you go, subscription
  • Format: Pay per traffic
  • Modifiers: Dedicated IPs
  • Starting price: $8.40 for 1 GB
  • Trial: 7 days for companies

It’s possible to use the residential proxies freely or commit to a plan. If you do, the rate can become up to 35% cheaper. You can further reduce it by opting for a yearly contract.

Like most similar services, Bright Data only considers traffic use. It’s is one of the more expensive options until enterprise levels of scale. Having said that, the differences have been shrinking recently, with major providers going through significant price cuts.

Performance Benchmarks

We last tested Bright Data’s residential proxies in March 2024, for the annual Proxy Market Research.

#1: Pool size & composition

  • Requests: Global pool – 1.2M, 21 days; country pools – 560k, 14 days; Australia – 140k, 7 days 
  • Residential percentage: IP2Location database, Usage type data point (ISP, ISP/MOB, MOB IPs)

 

GatewayUnique IPsResidential %
Global885,51298.59%
US392,27299.05%
UK200,75999.81%
EU*266,88298.79%
Brazil175,46497.58%
India189,97398.10%
Australia13,77599.36%

* Combines Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands.

bright data residential global pool comparison residential country pool comparison
Bright Data had a large and balanced proxy pool. It should ensure enough proxies in any location, even with precise filtering enabled. There were especially many American IPs – only NetNut had more, but the difference was minor.

#2: IP quality (IPQualityScore data)

  • Global pool: 20,000 checks
  • US pool: 10,000 checks

 

 Avg. fraud scoreProxy %Frequent abuser
Global44.5247.52%1,412
US71.7675.81%1,400
bright data residential fraud score comparison global bright data residential fraud score comparison us

Bright Data’s proxies looked fairly well: better in the Global pool, and somewhat poorer when checking only US-based IPs. This shows that the proxy pool is being used, but it’s not as abused as something like Infatica or IPRoyal.

#3: Infrastructure performance

  • Parameters: Same as the pool test
  • Target: Nearest server of a global CDN (<10 KB)
  • Our server locations: DE for Global & European pools, US for American & Brazil pools, Singapore for Indian & Australian pools
 
GatewayAvg. success rateAvg. response time
Global98.96%1.12 s
US99.14%1.00 s
UK99.01%0.75 s
EU99.12%0.80 s
Brazil99.51%1.04 s
India98.69%1.76 s
Australia99.28%1.73 s
bright data residential success rate comparison bright data residential response time comparison

Bright Data’s infrastructure performed very well throughout the testing period. The success rate hovered around 99% in all locations, and the average response time was faster than most in the Global pool. Few providers beat those numbers, with the exception of Smartproxy and Oxylabs, both of which are extremely fast.

On the other hand, Bright Data’s results have changed little in two years, while major competitors have been making significant improvements.

#4: Performance with popular targets

  • Requests: ~2,600 for each target
  • Script: Custom non-headless Python scraper; social media – Puppeteer Extra Stealth
  • Proxy location: US
  • Our server location: US

 

 
WebsiteAvg. success rateAvg. response time
Amazon96.75%4.51 s
GoogleBlocked
Social Media72.50%12.56 s 
Total84.63%8.54 s
Bright Data displayed strong results with Amazon but for some reason struggled with the social media network. Unfortunately, we couldn’t test them with Google – the provider blocked this target, prompting customers to use SERP API instead.

Bright Data mobile network consists of peer-to-peer proxies – they’re borrowed from the mobile phones of real users and not USB dongle farms.

Pool Size & Coverage

  • Advertised pool size: 7 million
  • Locations: Global
  • Targeting options: Global, country, state, city, ASN, ZIP code, OS

Bright Data’s mobile proxy network is around 10 times smaller than its residential service. Still, it covers all locations and offers very granular targeting capabilities – including the mobile carrier and OS.

Features

  • Rotation: Every request, as long as available (customizable with Proxy Manager)
  • Traffic: Plan based
  • Concurrency: Unlimited threads & ports
  • Other: Request caching, dedicated IPs

The mobile proxy functionality mirrors that of Bright Data’s residential product. You can filter the IPs up to a very precise level, rotate the servers on every request or establish customizable sticky sessions.

Bright Data doesn’t cap the number of parallel requests and includes its unique features like request caching and dedicated addresses.

Integration & Use

  • Connection method: Gateway address
  • Formats: brd.superproxy.io:22225 –proxy-user brd-customer-USERNAME-zone-mobile-country-us-city-newyork-asn-209:PASSWORD
  • Protocols: HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS5
  • Authentication: Credentials, IP whitelisting

The mobile proxies use a gateway address. It automatically chooses Bright Data’s closest load balancer before sending requests through an end user’s device.

Multiple authentication methods and all major connections protocols are available, making the service suitable for all uses. Note that the use of SOCKS5 requires installing extra software.

Pricing Plans

  • Model: Pay as you go, subscription
  • Format: Pay per traffic
  • Modifiers: Dedicated IPs
  • Starting price: $8.40 for 1 GB
  • Trial: 7 days for companies

Bright Data’s mobile proxies are available with or without a subscription. The latter option of course makes the rates cheaper the more you spend.

The provider charges for traffic only. Dedicated addresses charge more compared to the base service.

After a price revision in the spring of 2024, Bright Data’s mobile proxies have relatively extremely affordable, matching most premium providers. 

Performance Benchmarks

We last tested Bright Data’s mobile proxies in March 2024.

#1: Pool size & composition

  • Requests: 280k, 14 days; Australia – 140k, 7 days 
  • Mobile percentage: IP2Location database, Usage type data point (ISP/MOB, MOB IPs)

 

GatewayUnique IPsMobile %
Global102,67198.21%
US20,94296.74%
UK3,31999.61%
EU*24,51698.23%
Brazil4,96297.74%
India43,88299.65%
Australia54694.51%

* Combines Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands.

bright data mobile global pool comparison mobile country pool comparison mobile country pool comparison filtered
To our surprise, Bright Data’s mobile proxy pool wasn’t all that large. Sure, 43,000 IPs in India are a lot; but we only found around 3,000 UK proxies, and fewer than 1,000 Australian addresses. Most competitors could muster more, even after excluding their not-quite-mobile IPs from the results.

#2: Infrastructure performance

  • Parameters: Same as the pool test
  • Target: Nearest server of a global CDN (<10 KB)
  • Our server locations: DE for Global & European pools, US for American & Brazil pools, Singapore for Indian & Australian pools
 
GatewayAvg. success rateAvg. response time
Global98.21%1.97 s
US95.38%1.47 s
UK93.21%1.36 s
EU97.44%1.28 s
Brazil90.63%2.27 s
India97.68%2.74 s
Australia97.70%2.06 s
bright data mobile success rate comparison bright data mobile response time comparison

Bright Data’s infrastructure performance was solid but not outstanding. Over 98% successful requests is about the standard for mobile IPs. The response time was on the slower end, even when comparing to predominantly mobile alternatives (Oxylabs, Smartproxy, and SOAX).

#3: Performance with popular targets

  • Requests: ~2,600 for each target
  • Script: Custom non-headless Python scraper; social media – Puppeteer Extra Stealth
  • Proxy location: US
  • Our server location: US
 
WebsiteAvg. success rateAvg. response time
Amazon71.01%7.15 s
GoogleBlocked
Social Media40.19%17.58 s
Total55.60%12.37 s

The performance was surprisingly mediocre, especially with the social media network: slow and failing more than succeeding. This is uncharaceristic of Bright Data and mobile proxies in general, but we saw similar issues last year as well.

Bright Data maintains several configurations of datacenter proxies.

  1. A service where you can buy a fixed number of addresses, either shared or dedicated.
  2. A rotating proxy pool for entry-level tasks that the provider calls Bright Lite (mind the pun).
bright data datacenter IP types
The Premium pool has been deprecated.

Features

 Pay per IPPay per traffic
FormatIP list / custom poolProxy pool with 20,000 IPs
Countries~100 countries with city-level targeting100 randomly assigned countries
RotationEvery request, static, customizable with Proxy Manager
ThreadsUnlimited
TrafficPotentially unlimitedPlan based
SOCKS5✅✅
AuthenticationCredentials, IP whitelist
OtherDedicated IPs, 100% uptime, paid refresh 

Bright Data has a unified system, so many of the features overlap among the three types. In general, you get wide location coverage, unlimited threads, and SOCKS5 support.

Furthermore, all three products have the ability to rotate, or you can choose to send multiple requests with a particular address. In any case, you connect through Bright Data’s load balancing gateway rather than the proxy server directly.

The main difference is that the Pay per IP service lets you specify how many proxies you need in particular locations. So instead of getting a randomly distributed proxy pool, you can simply buy 20,000 IPs in the US.

In addition, it’s possible to make Pay per IP proxies dedicated for all or some domains, and select them from different cities. And finally, there’s a free toggle called 100% uptime – if a proxy goes down, Bright Data automatically replaces it with a different one with the same parameters.

Note that Bright Data assigns datacenter proxies automatically, which may lead to some bad seeds (as we’ll see in the performance benchmarks). You may have to refresh some IPs once or twice (this is paid) until you find the perfect configuration.

Pricing Plans

 Pay per IPPay per traffic
ModelSubscription, pay as you go
FormatIPs + trafficTraffic
Starting price$0.11/GB + $0.8/IP$0.65/GB
UpsellsUnlimited traffic, dedicated IPs, city targeting 
Trial7 days for companies

You can pay for the products as you go or commit to a fixed plan. The first option is pretty unusual for datacenter addresses. But as always, it costs more per unit than a subscription.

Unlike many competitors, Bright Data prices its IP-based service based not only proxy count but also traffic use. It’s possible to select unlimited traffic, but this significantly increases the price. So does making a proxy dedicated.

In a broader context, Bright Data’s traffic-based datacenter proxies are priced competitively. With the IP-based product, it depends: the barebones version is cheap, but the maxed out unlimited traffic and domains configuration costs more than most.

Performance Benchmarks

We last tested Bright Data’s 50,000 shared US proxies in March 2024.

#1: Infrastructure performance (rotating proxies)

  • Requests: 50,000
  • Proxy location: US
  • Target: Nearest server of a global CDN (<10 KB)
  • Our computer’s location: US

 

Avg. success rate
Avg. response time
99.96%0.26 s
The shared proxies worked effectively without fail, and the vast majority of our requests reached the target. They werely also extremely fast and managed to outrun most competitors.

#2: Download speed

  • IPs tested: 10
  • Target: Hetzner’s 100MB Ashburn benchmark

 

Avg. without proxiesAvg. download speedSlowest IP
32.56 MB/s9.72 MB/s0.98 MB/s

The shared proxy servers were fast enough for most tasks including streaming, even taking into account the slowest IP’s throughput.

#3: Performance with popular targets

  • Requests: ~2,600 per target
  • Script: Custom non-headless Python scraper
  • Proxy location: US
  • Our server location: US

 

 Avg. success rateAvg. response time
Amazon5.83%2.46 s
GoogleBlocked
Homedepot85.14%0.64 s
Total45.49%1.55 s
Bright Data’s proxies kept their excellent speed, but they really struggled with Amazon – only one in 20 requests succeeded. For context, the second worst provider in our benchmark, NetNut, completed every third request successfully. To be fair, we tested Bright Data’s regular and not the premium pool.
 
As with other proxy types, Google is blocked by default.

How to Use Bright Data

Bright Data has a complex but rich ecosystem of management tools – let’s have a look at them. 

Registration

You can register with Bright Data by entering your first and last name, work email, and company size. If you have particularly large or custom needs, you can schedule a call. The login options include the credentials you’ve created, as well as Google and Okta SSO.

Bright Data is known to be strict about compliance, especially if you use its peer-to-peer proxy networks. That said, the provider simplified the process: it now allows you to reach over 200 websites via residential proxies without undergoing the full KYC. Otherwise, you’ll be asked to present your personal details, add some money to the account, and wait up to three days for verification.

Dashboard

Bright Data’s dashboard used to be full of options and pretty overbearing. After several revamps, the provider simplified it to several sections for product categories, another for billing, and one more for account controls. The complexity is still there, but most of it is tucked away behind several levels of navigation. 

You’ll be able to do everything from adding money to your account, setting up & authorizing proxies to viewing usage statistics and contacting support. 

Security is another priority. Bright Data lets you give different access levels to your team, set up 2FA, see the event log, and receive automated notifications related to subscription and proxy use.

One more useful feature is network status. It shows the uptime of each service in real time and can notify you via email if something goes down. 

The dashboard is available in six languages, including Russian, Spanish, Portuguese, and Chinese.

bright data dashboard home
The dashboard's main page.

Subscription Management

Unlike most proxy providers, Bright Data uses a custom system for proxies called Zones. A zone works like a plan. It’s possible create multiple zones for each proxy type and even have separate zones with identical configurations. You can assign spending limits (based on traffic or money) for each zone, as well as track your expenditure throughout the month. 

Bright Data dashboard zones

Another unconventional decision is that Bright Data has no separate plans for each product. Instead, a plan applies to all services depending on how much money you commit. You can change the plan in the Billing section.

But that’s not all. The Billing section provides detailed information about your subscription and money use. You can find your current balance, active plan, invoices, and configure payment methods. The provider also includes a visual cost explorer and, in a nice gesture for accountants, allows you to specify invoice recipients.

bright data dashboard billing bright data dashboard invoices

Proxy Management

To do anything with proxies on Bright Data’s platform, you first have to create a zone.

This involves selecting a proxy type and adding additional permissions, if any. The configuration wizard will show you an estimated cost based on your choices. The final step is to name the zone and confirm its creation. 

For example, suppose I wanted rotating residential proxies for a small project. I’d choose the Residential zone. Under Permissions, country targeting would be enough for me; otherwise, I could enable states, cities, ASNs, and ZIP codes as extras. Then, I’d choose shared IPs, as I don’t need them for my exclusive use. At last, I’d press Add Zone.

bright data creating a zone

After creating a zone, you’ll need to integrate the proxies. Bright Data offers three integration methods: through gateway servers (which the provider calls Super Proxies), Proxy Manager, or a Chrome extension. 

The Super Proxy method works similarly to other proxy providers. You get an interactive widget that generates gateway addresses in the hostname:port format. It’s possible to select a zone and filter the proxies by location, which automatically reflects in the username.

Bright Data’s widget also provides dynamic code samples for major programming languages like Python, PHP, and Node.JS. You can select from several pre-sets, such as using proxies with a sticky session or quickly rotating between IPs. 

Bright Data uses one system for all proxy products. So even its Pay per IP datacenter proxies have to connect through gateway servers. This increases complexity, but it’s still possible to create a static session or even pinpoint a particular IP address. 

bright data dashboard proxy setup
Setting up Bright Data's proxies.

The second method lets you control proxies with a piece of software called Proxy Manager. It’s an open source tool available on all operating systems and in the cloud.

In a nutshell, Proxy Manager makes every aspect of your work with the proxies better. It replaces the (still somewhat limited) usage statistics with detailed live logs; it allows better management of rotation settings (the dashboard is pretty meh in this regard); and it enables SOCKS5 for those who need it. These are just the basics.

One interesting feature is the Proxy Waterfall. Basically, whenever you make a request to a website, it first goes via the least effective (and cheapest) proxy network. If that fails, the system tries again with another proxy type, until you succeed. 

While that does sound nice in theory, I can see a few caveats: first, you’ll need to subscribe to multiple IP networks at once; second, this approach can be slower, so it could make sense to use the waterfall for gauging the tolerance level of a domain. 

The breadth of features Proxy Manager offers is truly huge. They might help you, or simply confuse you, but they’re there. I’m just not sure how I feel about the fact that you need this tool for such simple things as adjusting the rotation time.

The third way is using a browser extension for Google Chrome. It’s pretty customizable and lets you change your IP address based on a Zone or a location. You can set up sticky sessions and even modify the request headers. Bright Data advertises the extension as a tool for manual scraping, but I think it’s better suited for viewing content rather than extracting it.

Usage Tracking

Bright Data has put a lot of effort into statistics, with several ways to reach them. 

  1. A quick toggle in the Zones page. It gives you a visual overview of your bandwidth and request use.
  2. A tab with usage statistics per proxy network and a customizable graph.
  3. Usage statistics and graphs for each zone in its settings.


Each way provides flexible filtering options. You can a time period ranging anywhere between one hour to two years. The metrics include not only bandwidth expenditure but also number of requests, and in some cases error rate. 

If you use Proxy Manager, it’s possible to display its statistics on the dashboard, as well. Bright Data even provides a way to separate API and Proxy Manager traffic in some of the graphs.

bright data dashboard quick statistics bright data dashboard general statistics bright data dashboard zone statistics

Public API

Bright Data offers an API for managing the proxy servers programmatically. It’s the most comprehensive and granular API I’ve seen in this industry, and you might have to get a new degree to make full use of it. 

Documentation

With such a complex service, Bright Data needs to have appropriate documentation to make sense of it. And it does. You’ll find answers and instructions both in text and video formats.

Perhaps your first resource should be Bright Data’s FAQ page. It answers all the basic questions about using the service, and then some. Then, there are webinars – they cover narrower concerns, such as reCAPTCHA avoidance and browser automation. There’s also a video-based learning hub, though it looks pretty much outdated and abandoned in comparison. 

Hands-On Support

If, by any chance, you won’t find your answer – or simply get lost looking for one – there’s the hands-on support. 

Bright Data offers a ticket system on the dashboard. Customers that commit to a plan also get an account manager. Else, you can contact the provider using WhatsApp, Telegram, and even a phone. 

We found the answering time to be fast: we sent multiple email messages throughout the day, and a reply came in 14 minutes on average. Communication with account managers is even faster, but they don’t work round the clock.

However, the customer service isn’t equal for all. Bright Data has segmented and commercialized its functionality by introducing tiered support packages. The base one doesn’t even get 24/7 replies, unless serious technical issues occur. 

Conclusion

Bright Data calls itself world’s #1 web data platform, and testing it gave me compelling reasons to believe the claim.

The proxy networks Chris and I have tried were excellent: fast, stable, and large. They come full of features, and Bright Data makes sure to provide the tools to make best use of them. Pound for pound, there are few providers that can compare.

However, the privilege comes at a cost. Some may be put off by how technically complex Bright Data is; others may find its compliance process too invasive; but most likely, the main showstopper – if any – will be the price. It’s hard to find a provider that’s more expensive, especially if you require the features Bright Data considers premium (such as unlimited bandwidth for the dedicated proxies).

But if you don’t find price an issue, Bright Data really is one of the best options you can get.

Bright Data Alternatives

Oxylabs logo
Rating 9.3 / 10
★★★★★ 4.7/5

Bright Data’s closest competitor in the premium segment. It offers all the main proxy types and multiple APIs for web scraping, coupled with personalized customer service.

Visit Oxylabs

Read the review

smartproxy-logo
Rating 9.3 / 10
★★★★★ 4.7/5

Smartproxy is a great choice if you want to save some money on rotating proxies. It offers multiple IP types, better prices, and is easier to use in exchange for fewer features.

Visit Smartproxy

Read the review

black soax logo
Rating 9.0 / 10
★★★★★ 4.5/5

SOAX can be a good option if you need precise locations but don’t want to pay Bright Data’s premium. It supports region, city, and ASN targeting out of the box.

Visit SOAX

Read the review

Want more? View the full list of the Bright Data alternatives.

Recommended for:

Enterprise customers or those that need advanced features.

Try Bright Data

Add up to $500 to your account and get double the amount. 

Bright Data logo
Rating 9.3 / 10
★★★★★ 4.5/5
Try Bright Data

Add up to $500 to your account and get double the amount. 

Picture of Adam Dubois
Adam Dubois
Proxy geek and developer.

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]]> https://proxyway.com/reviews/bright-data-proxies/feed 7 NetNut Review https://proxyway.com/reviews/netnut-proxies https://proxyway.com/reviews/netnut-proxies#comments Thu, 09 Nov 2023 09:09:01 +0000 https://stage-web2.proxyway.com/?post_type=reviews&p=13864 NetNut Review Rotating proxies for high-volume use. NetNut controls large proxy networks that can be very fast and perform decently. But they work best for experienced users or those who want proxies at scale. Rating 9.0 / 10 ★★★★★ 4.5/5 Use the code PWYNTNT to get a 30% discount. Try NetNut NetNut is a premium […]

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NetNut Review

Rotating proxies for high-volume use.

NetNut controls large proxy networks that can be very fast and perform decently. But they work best for experienced users or those who want proxies at scale.

Rating 9.0 / 10
★★★★★ 4.5/5

Use the code PWYNTNT to get a 30% discount.

Try NetNut

NetNut is a premium provider of rotating proxy servers. It’s less popular than something like Smartproxy or Bright Data but still a well-known option among businesses. NetNut’s forte is ISP proxies, though nowadays it can offer all major IP types.

In this review, I’ll take a close look at NetNut’s ISP, residential, and mobile proxy services. We’ll see how it compares with other premium providers and whether NetNut really controls the fastest residential proxy network, as it likes to claim.

Here we go.

News about NetNut

NetNut Cuts Residential Proxy Prices by 50%

The provider's plans keep the same price but offer double the traffic.
  • Provider News

NetNut Revises Static Residential Proxy Pricing

More accessible plans, cheaper rates, still no pay-as-you-go.
  • Provider News

NetNut Decreases Residential & Mobile Proxy Prices

Cheaper entry plans, up to 60% better rates, still no pay-as-you-go.
  • Provider News
Read all news

General Information

Country Israel
Founded 2017
Proxy networksDatacenter (rotating)
ISP (rotating)
Residential
Mobile
Proxy API (in beta)
Other services
SERP API, professional datasets
Supporting tools –
Price range Premium
Starting price $100
Payment methodsPayPal, Credit Card
Trial7 days for businesses

NetNut is an Israeli proxy provider established in 2017. It belongs to Alarum, which provides cybersec and privacy services. NetNut’s main products are its rotating proxy networks. There are also several web scraping APIs and professional datasets you can try.

NetNut can safely be considered a premium provider with an eye to businesses with big needs. This reflects throughout the whole service: from customer support to pricing. That doesn’t mean NetNut is completely inaccessible to entry-level clients: the plans start from $100. But you’ll get better experience – and much better rates – paying $500 and up. 

Aside from businesses, resellers are another focus. NetNut tries to lure them in with dedicated pools, elaborate usage statistics, and, of course, functionality like proxy management API and sub-users, which are locked from regular customers. NetNut has been a popular choice among sneaker scalpers thanks to its large network of ISP proxies.

Speaking of, ISP proxies are (or at least were) NetNut’s highlight. NetNut sources them via DiviNetworks, where the company pays internet service providers for sharing their unused bandwidth. This carries extra benefits compared to other ISP proxy services, namely that the IPs have real browsing history, and you might even use them in parallel with residential users.

The other networks like residential and mobile proxies came later. The provider isn’t open about how it sources its end-user based addresses. In any case, they balance out the service and make NetNut a viable choice for most web scraping professionals.

NetNut Proxy Networks

NetNut offers access to all major types of proxy servers:

  • Datacenter proxies in a rotating pool format.
  • ISP proxies that also connect you to a large pool of IPs.
  • Residential proxies from various countries around the world.
  • Mobile proxies borrowing the resources of mobile phones and other devices on carrier networks.
netnut proxy networks
NetNut's proxy networks.

We cover individual proxy types in the expandable drop-downs below:

Datacenter proxies are NetNut’s entry-level product. Like all of the provider’s other proxy networks, it grants access to the full pool with optional rotation and shared access. NetNut told us that it planned to introduce a dedicated format, but this hasn’t materialized yet.

Pool Size & Coverage

Advertised pool size Locations Targeting options
150,000 US Global, country

NetNut advertises to control around 150,000 datacenter IPs. If the number is to be believed, this is one of (if not the) largest datacenter pools on the market.

For its size, the product can’t boast big location coverage. NetNut’s marketing is very vague about it, only mentioning that the pool is global. We’re inclined to believe that it mostly revolves around the US.

Features

Rotation Traffic Concurrency Other
Every request, static session Plan based Unlimited threads & ports –

NetNut’s rotation options include every connection request. Otherwise, you can bind an IP to a session which should last indefinitely.

Traffic aside, you’re free to use the proxy network without limits.

Integration & Use

Connection methodFormatProtocols
Authentication
Gateway addressUSERNAME-dc-us-sid-ID:[email protected]:5959HTTP
HTTPS
SOCKS5		Credentials
IP whitelist

NetNut’s datacenter proxies use a backonnect gateway server for integration: you get one address and port, and then you can filter locations or establish sessions by manipulating the username.

All three connections protocols and both authentication methods are available. However, the use of IP whitelisting may require manual setup by NetNut.

Pricing Plans

ModelFormatModifiersStarting priceTrial
Subscription Pay per traffic–$100 for 100 GB ($1/GB)7 days for companies

Like all NetNut’s products, the datacenter network only offers a subscription-based model. Topping up is unavailable – if you run out of traffic, you’ll need to refresh the whole plan.

Despite being an entry-level product to NetNut’s services, it still has a very steep entry threshold. Competitors, even enterprise-grade companies like Bright Data and Oxylabs, offer significantly cheaper entry plans.

Even when you pay $100, don’t expect to get favorable rates. NetNut remains the most expensive option among our tested providers until 1 TB of traffic. Only then does it start competing on price.

Performance Benchmarks

We last tested NetNut’s datacenter proxies in March 2024.

#1: Infrastructure performance We ran 50,000 connection requests using US-located proxies. Our computer was in the US. We targeted a global CDN – it pinged a server nearest to the proxy IP and had a response size of several kilobytes.
Avg. success rate Avg. response time
99.75% 0.27

As expected of datacenter proxies, NetNut’s servers rarely failed. They also had a very low response time that rivaled the fastest competitors (namely, Bright Data).

#2: Download speed

We tested 10 IPs using Hetzner’s 100 MB Ashburn benchmark.

Avg. without proxiesAvg. download speed
Slowest IP
32.56 MB/s2.64 MB/s0.91 MB/s

Unfortunately, we can’t say the same about their throughput. The datacenter proxies slowed down our connection significantly, suggesting that the servers were overused or not given many resources in the first place

#3: Performance with popular targets

We made ~2,600 connection requests to each target using US proxies and a non-headless Python scraper. Our computer was located in the US. Note that your results may differ based on your web scraping setup.

 Avg. success rateAvg. response time
Amazon29.58%2.47 s
Google71.07%1.22 s
Homedepot94.58%0.76 s
Total65.08%1.48 s

The datacenter proxy pool was able to scrape most targets with an acceptable success rate. The only exception was Amazon, where more than two out of three requests failed. The success rate with Google, on the other hand, was relatively high for datacenter IPs, at least at this scale.

Static residential proxies have been NetNut’s bread and butter since inception, and once truly a distinguishing product. Now, their uniqueness has faded, but ISP proxies remain a core service that sometimes supplements the other proxy networks. 

Pool Size & Coverage

Advertised pool sizeLocationsTargeting options
1 million30+ countriesGlobal, country, state, city, ASN

NetNut advertises 1 million IPs. This number used to be bigger a few years back; but even after the decrease, it remains the largest on the market. 

You may think that a million isn’t much, especially compared to residential proxy networks. But keep in mind that ISP proxies are always online, so a pool this large goes a long way.

In particular, there are around 30 countries to choose from, primarily the US and Europe. This is okay for most use cases, though if you want IPs in Africa or smaller South American countries, we recommend NetNut’s rotating residential proxies. You can target cities, states, and even ASNs.
 
All in all, very few competitors are able to offer a similar package. 

Features

RotationTrafficConcurrencyOther
Every request, static sessions
Plan basedUnlimited threads & ports–

Because they come in a pool, these ISP proxies can rotate. The default is every connection request. You can establish sticky sessions by adding a session ID parameter to the username; the sessions never really expire.

The only limitation manifests in the shape of traffic. Otherwise, you can use these proxies your heart’s extent.

Integration & Use

Connection methodFormatProtocolsAuthentication
Gateway addressUSERNAME-stc-sc-us_alabama_birmingham-sid-ID:[email protected]:5959HTTP
HTTPS
SOCKS5		Credentials
IP whitelisting

The ISP proxy pool integrates using a backonnect gateway address. It always remains the same, and adjustments are made by modifying the username.

For use cases where credential authentication is impossible, NetNut can generate different ports upon request, which you then access by whitelisting your IP address.

Pricing Plans

ModelFormatModifiersStarting priceTrial
SubscriptionPay per traffic–$99 for 7 GB ($14.4/GB)7 days for companies

NetNut uses a subscription-based pricing model for its ISP proxies. The cheapest plan starts from $99; this is by no means low, but it used to be even less accessible before August 2024.

The ISP proxies cost up to twice more than the provider’s residential network. In the broader context, NetNut’s rates hover near the market average and start picking up the pace from 100 GB onwards. Still, they find it hard to compete with value providers like SOAX and Webshare. 

Performance Benchmarks

We last last tested NetNut’s ISP proxy pool in October 2023, for the ISP proxy research. 

#1: Pool size & composition

We ran ~780,000 connection requests over 7 days using the US pool. 

Unique IPsASNsC-class subnetsIPs/subnet
143,9683567254

We further enriched IP data using two databases. IPinfo provided information about the ASN name and type (whether it’s a residential network). IP2Location gave us data about the business purpose of the company that owns the IP (usage type). ISP proxies often have mismatching ASN and IP owner, and this data point is relevant with some detection tools like Scamalytics.  

IPs under a residential ASNIPs under a top 10 US ASNUsage type – ISP or MOB
100%0%59% (the rest – educational)
NetNut had the largest ISP proxy pool out of all tested providers. Our IPs came only from three ASNs, and we received nearly full networks. NetNut later explained that they limited the available pool for the research, and that it includes around 30 different ASNs in total. 
 
All of the IPs were under ASNs that IP databases recognized as residential, which is good news. However, the networks were small and local – no Comcast, Sprint, or RCN. This may not be ideal for some demanding use cases. 

#2: Infrastructure performance

This benchmark shared the same parameters as the pool test. Our computer was located in Germany. We targeted a global CDN – it chose a server closest to the IP and had a response size of several kilobytes. To benchmark download speed, we used Hetzner’s 100 MB speed test. 

Avg. success rateAvg. response timeAvg. download speed (10 IPs)
93.63%  0.46 s 9.71 MB/s
NetNut’s ISP proxies were among the fastest and had decent throughput. This area really shouldn’t cause you issues. However, the connection failed often, mostly due to the proxies timing out. This is a problem that’s persisted with NetNut throughout the years and remains unsolved.

Residential proxies are one of NetNut’s main products. However, not all of them come from real devices: due to a past legal conflict with Bright Data, NetNut only sells server-based residential proxies in the US (basically, ISP proxies).

Pool Size & Coverage

Advertised pool sizeLocationsTargeting options
85 millionGlobalGlobal, country, state, city, ASN

NetNut advertises 85 million IPs. The number is tricky: these aren’t monthly or quarterly but rather total nodes seen since 2017. In other words, it tells us basically nothing about the current state of the proxy pool.

In any case, you can target any country in the world. If need be, NetNut offers even more granular filtering options, including city and ASN. Unfortunately, you can’t select a country and ASN at the same time, which limits the usefulness of this feature.

Features

RotationTrafficConcurrencyOther
Every request, sticky sessions, long sessions
Plan basedUnlimited threads & ports–

NetNut’s residential proxies can rotate with every connection request or establish sticky sessions. They require adding a session ID to the username and keep the same IP address until it goes offline. There’s no possibility to specify a custom rotation duration for now.

NetNut also offers a long session feature. It’s able to maintain the same IP address for up to one hour. The implementation is tricky: you send a parameter called nnid to the proxy server, it returns a unique token, and then you use that token for subsequent requests.

As is often the case with residential proxy networks, the only limitation is the money you’re willing to spend on traffic.

Integration & Use

Connection methodFormatProtocolsAuthentication
Gateway addressUSERNAME-res-sc-us_alabama_birmingham-sid-ID:[email protected]:5959HTTP
HTTPS
SOCKS5		Credentials
IP whitelisting

NetNut’s residential proxies use gateway servers. They route your requests through the nearest load balancer and then the end user’s device.

The provider gives you one address, and you add filters or create sessions by modifying the username. This can be problematic for scenarios where credentials can’t be used; in such cases, NetNut lets you whitelist an IP and provides a list of addresses with different port numbers upon request.

You can reach the proxy network using all three connection protocols; SOCKS5 (specifically, SOCKS5h) requires a different port but otherwise follows the same configuration as HTTP/S.

Pricing Plans

ModelFormatModifiersStarting priceTrial
SubscriptionPay per traffic–$99 for 28 GB ($3.53/GB)7 days

NetNut is an unapologetically premium provider. There is no pay as you go, and the pricing plans start from $100, which is pretty expensive these days. 

NetNut’s direct premium competitors all slashed their rates in 2023 and again in early 2024. NetNut finally followed suit in June 2024, then again in March 2025, effectively equalizing its public prices with Oxylabs and Bright Data. In addition, NetNut tends to scale very well when buying in bulk. 

Performance Benchmarks

We last tested NetNut’s residential proxies in March 2024, for the annual Proxy Market Research.

#1: Pool size & composition

GatewayParametersUnique IPsResidential %*
Global1.2M req, 21 days908,29095.21%
US560k req, 14 days442,10595.19%
UK560k req, 14 days314,82596.51%
EU** 1.2M req, 14 days255,97192.66%
Brazil560k req, 14 days289,36896.60%
India560k req, 14 days326,29998.27%
Australia 140k req, 7 days26,31993.12%

* IP2Location database, Usage type data point, ISP, ISP/MOB, MOB IPs.
** Combines Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands.

netnut residential pool comparison march 2024 residential country pool comparison
In our benchmark, NetNut had among the larger proxy pools, rivaling premium competitors like Oxylabs and Bright Data. Compared to previous years, it’s become more evenly distributed, with all tested locations having sizable presences.
 
NetNut also managed to clean up the pool by inceasing the ratio of residential IPs compared to hosting and business networks. All in all, it’s currently one of the better residential proxy pools on the market.

#2: IP quality

We checked 20,000 proxies in the Global pool and 10,000 proxies in the US using the IPQualityScore database.

 Avg. fraud scoreProxy %Frequent abuser
Global44.3745.79%2,548
US45.2846.44%1,730
netnut residential global fraud score march 2024 netnut residential us fraud score march 2024

NetNut’s proxies had a decent average fraud score, comparable to its premium competitors. This applied both to the Global and US pools. The only worrying metric was IPs engaged in frequent abusive activities – other major providers like Oxylabs had up to five times fewer flagged proxies in their Global pools.

#3: Infrastructure performance

This benchmark shared the same parameters as the pool test. Our scraper was located in Germany for the Global pool, and we also had scrapers in the US and Singapore for individual country pools. We targeted a global CDN – it pinged a server nearest to the proxy IP and had a response size of several kilobytes.

GatewayAvg. success rateAvg. response time
Global98.15%1.21 s
US98.45%0.83 s
UK99.30%0.64 s
EU98.97%0.85 s
Brazil83.23%1.89 s
India93.15%1.95 s
Australia98.34%1.17 s
netnut residential success rate comparison march 2024 NetNut residential response time comparison march 2024
NetNut had a solid success rate that varied between 93% and 99%, depending on the location. The provider still has catching up to do, but it’s made significant improvements compared to previous years (+4.63% year-over-year).
 
In terms of response time, NetNut has effectively caught up to Bright Data, shedding nearly a second in a year. Only a few providers remain faster, most notably Oxylabs and Smartproxy.

#4: Performance with popular targets

We made ~2,600 connection requests to each target using US-filtered proxies. Our computer was located in the US. Note that your results may differ based on your web scraping setup.

WebsiteAvg. success rateAvg. response time
Amazon95.46%3.31 s
Google90.90%1.92 s
Social Media96.88%3.11 s
Total94.41%2.78 s
NetNut’s residential proxies tackled popular targets very well. They maintained a success rate of over 90% and were among the fastest to open pages among all our tested providers.

Mobile addresses are the newest addition to NetNut’s proxy line-up launched in late 2022. This is a network of peer-to-peer devices from around the world.

Pool Size & Coverage

Advertised pool sizeLocationsTargeting options
1 million100+Global, country, ASN

Compared to the residential network, NetNut is modest about its mobile pool claims. The provider advertises 1 million IPs, and the number used to be just 250,000 until May 2024.

The number of supported locations is also more limited, so are the targeting options. City-level filtering is likely unavailable due to the relatively small size of the pool.

Features

RotationTrafficConcurrencyOther
Every request, sticky sessions
Plan basedUnlimited threads & ports–

NetNut’s mobile proxies are able to rotate with every connection request or establish sticky sessions. This is achieved by creating a session ID, so there’s no way to specify how long you want the session to last.

NetNut allows making any number of connection requests at once, making the service suitable for large-scale web scraping.

Integration & Use

Connection methodFormatProtocolsAuthentication
Gateway addressUSERNAME-mob-us-sid-ID:[email protected]:5959HTTP
HTTPS
SOCKS5		Credentials
IP whitelisting

The mobile proxy network uses a backconnect gateway address. It always remains the same, while all configurations reflect in the username.

If you’re using software that fails to support authentication by credentials, NetNut allows whitelisting your IP address instead. The provider then creates a list of ports based on your requirements, suggesting that this is a manual process.

The proxy network supports end-to-end encryption by letting you connect through HTTPS. SOCKS5 is also available though likely restricted (few open ports, no UDP).

Pricing Plans

ModelFormatModifiersStarting priceTrial
SubscriptionPay per traffic–$99 for 13 GB ($7.6/GB)7 days for companies

NetNut’s mobile proxies follow a subscription-based pricing model and start from $100, which is a lot. There’s no paying as you go; but given that NetNut’s after enterprise clients, they can use the free trial. 

Compared to the broader market, NetNut does well against its main competitors, Oxylabs and Bright Data. After the price reduction in June 2024, the provider has once again become a competitive premium choice. 

Performance Benchmarks

We last tested NetNut’s mobile proxies in March 2024.

#1: Pool size & composition

We ran 280,000 requests over 14 days using the unfiltered pool and country pools, and 140,000 connection requests over 7 days using the Australian pool. We enriched IP data with the IP2Location database.

GatewayParametersUnique IPsMobile %*
Global280k req, 14 days247,41231.70%
US280k req, 14 days240,21326.08%
UK280k req, 14 days188,02266.58%
EU**280k req, 14 days98,22666.50%
Brazil280k req, 14 days79,63940.41%
India280k req, 14 days156,00794.17%
Australia 140k req, 7 days26,04430.36%

* IP2Location database, Usage type data point, ISP/MOB, MOB IPs.
** Combines Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands.

netnut mobile pool comparison march 2024 mobile country pool comparison mobile country pool comparison filtered

NetNut had an impressive proxy pool that overshadowed all other providers. There was only one problem – the pool wasn’t really mobile. In the Global gateway, more than two thirds of the IPs were associated with landline carriers, datacenters, and other types of ISPs. In the US pool, the situation was even worse.

We’re willing to give NetNut the benefit of a doubt – maybe our methodology was at fault? It’s certainly possible, but providers like Bright Data and Oxylabs had no such issues.

There’s one more theory to consider. Maybe for NetNut, a proxy is enough to be considered mobile if it comes from a mobile device? That would explain things, but it’s not really the standard approach.

#2: Infrastructure performance

This benchmark shared the same parameters as the pool test. Our computer was located in Germany for the Global pool, and we also had computers in the US and Singapore for individual country pools. We targeted a global CDN – it pinged a server nearest to the proxy IP and had a response size of several kilobytes.

GatewayAvg. success rateAvg. response time
Global98.81%1.20 s
US98.87%0.85 s
UK98.94%0.64 s
EU98.72%0.79 s
Brazil98.00%1.45 s
India72.72%2.29 s
Australia91.60%1.46 s
netnut mobile success rate comparison march 2024 netnut mobile response time comparison march 2024

With nearly 99% success in the Global pool, NetNut’s infastructure performance looked impressive. But we have to remember that these aren’t quite the mobile proxies we’re used to. The Indian pool, which had the highest percentage of carrier-bound IPs, underwhelmed.

In any case, NetNut improved by a lot compared to 2023 – especially in terms of response time.

#3: Performance with popular targets

We made ~2,600 connection requests to each target using US-filtered proxies. Our computer was located in the US. Note that your results may differ based on your web scraping setup.

WebsiteAvg. success rateAvg. response time
Amazon90.74%3.29 s
Google88.27%1.77 s
Social Media97.56%3.09 s
Total92.19%2.72 s

Over 90% success, low response time… NetNut’s proxies barely broke a sweat against popular websites. We really had no issues with them.

How to Use NetNut

NetNut has historically had issues with user experience. Despite recent improvements, it can still be frustrating if you prefer self-service. 

Registration

To create an account with NetNut, you’ll have to complete a 3-step procedure. It requires entering your full name, username, email address, password, and use case.

NetNut requires undergoing a KYC check for its residential and static residential networks. It comes in the form of an online form. 

Dashboard

NetNut’s dashboard is a mixed bag. Some parts are very fleshed out, while others are lacking or missing altogether.

In the dashboard, you’ll be able to see active plans, buy new ones, track your usage stats, and download invoices.  You’ll also be able to set up proxies using a provided widget, even if the process is somewhat unintuitive. Finally, there’s a live chat button to talk with customer support when they’re available.

netnut dashboard main
The dashboard's main screen.

Subscription Management

NetNut’s supports self-service for all its products, so you can get a plan via the dashboard. This will require entering your billing info with a lengthy form for company customers. You can opt to automatically renew plans if they expire or the traffic gets depleted, and the system allows having multiple plans active at once. 

Once you’ve bought a plan, you can track its expiration and status on the dashboard’s main screen. There are separate pages in the Settings for downloading invoices and viewing your purchase history, along with traffic use during the billing period.

There’s no advanced functionality like setting usage limits, topping-up a plan, or getting estimations for the remaining billing period. 

Proxy Management

NetNut’s proxy servers all use the same entry gateway, adding parameters to the username to specify proxy type, location, and sticky sessions. 

First, you’ll have to configure your credentials or whitelist an IP address. NetNut hides this functionality under the Settings sections. For some reason, the tab for whitelisting is called Unauthenticated IPs.

To facilitate proxy setup, NetNut provides an interactive widget called Proxy Generator. It lets you choose a programming language, proxy type, country, and target URL. It then generates a code snippet for pre-defined HTTP libraries. 

In my opinion, the widget’s current implementation is severely lacking:

  • It shows more locations than NetNut’s static residential proxies support, so you’ll have to guess. In addition, it provides no way to specify a city, even though this functionality is supported.
  • You can’t use it to generate a list of endpoints or specify sticky sessions. 
  • The widget is unable to fetch your credentials and requires entering the password.
  • Generating a code snippet for Bash (cURL) also includes an ancient user-agent header with Chrome 55 and Windows 8. The other programming languages don’t do this. 
  • I’m not sure why NetNut allows specifying a target and doesn’t simply use an in-house or external proxy checker like every other provider. 


To locate the missing instructions, you’ll have to browser around NetNut’s documentation. All in all, the experience is messy and begs for improvement. 

netnut proxy generator netnut dashboard user settings netnut dashboard ip whitelist

Usage Tracking

NetNut is generally very good with usage statistics. You can get granular reports filtered by a date range (preset or custom). The basic version includes request count, success rate, response time metrics, and data use. You can further filter use by countries, domains, and even connection errors. Overall, you get much more than most competitors can offer out of the box. 

While all this sounds great in theory, the actual implementation is once again very imperfect. For one, there are no visualizations whatsoever. Second, filtering by date didn’t work for me.

And third, I actually got conflicting data after turning on different toggles. The basic report showed that we had made over 600k requests with a success rate of 93%. With domain filtering on, the number of total requests now neared a million, and they had an average success rate close to 100%! Think of that what you will. 

netnut dashboard unfiltered usage stats netnut dashboard usage stats errors netnut dashboard usage stats domain filtering

Documentation

NetNut has historically had issues with presenting information. Thankfully, the situation has improved significantly.

First of all, NetNut has a rather lengthy FAQ and integration guidelines with major tools. In early 2024, the provider also launched a documentation hub for each product. It’s structured well and does a good job at guiding you through the services.

netnut documentation hub
NetNut's documentation hub.

Hands-On Support

NetNut offers life chat support during Israeli working hours, as well as email support. Customers further get their own dedicated account manager. This way, most communication is done on Skype.

When I registered for a free trial, one of NetNut’s managers messaged me after 15 minutes or so. He immediately enabled my test account and provided me with instructions. They usually create a separate chat for active users and respond quite quickly.

However, NetNut’s customer service isn’t always as fast. On average, it took them more than an hour to respond to our emails, and the estimated time for a live chat reply is around two hours. This isn’t ideal for emergencies.

Conclusion

So, what can I say about NetNut? Quite a few positive things, actually.

The little squirrel packs a punch. The proxy networks we tried are large and perform well, aside from some timeout issues. And if you require ISP proxies, it’s one of the best developed options in the market in terms of features. 

Proxies aside, improvements are needed. This applies especially to the user experience side of things: the setup widget is barely functional and customer support has limited working hours. There’s also the matter of pricing plans that start from hundreds of dollars and are no longer competitive in the entry range. 

That said, NetNut’s parent company has been shedding away its other properties to focus on the proxy business. This means more marketing budget, more products, and an overall push to grow. We’re already start to see new scraping APIs emerge from the workshop. 

Even now, NetNut is a terrific choice for scraping, market research, even social media automation – especially if you use thousands of gigabytes of data. Scale and flexibility are the company’s strong points, and they’re not to be underestimated.

All in all, NetNut is not quite the highest tier provider just yet, but it’s surely getting there.

NetNut Alternatives

Oxylabs logo
Rating 9.3 / 10
★★★★★ 4.7/5

A strong NetNut alternative for web scraping. You get a larger IP pool, better performance, and web scraping APIs that take care of proxy management.

Visit Oxylabs

Read the review

smartproxy-logo
Rating 9.3 / 10
★★★★★ 4.7/5

Smartproxy offers cheaper rotating proxy pools, several scraping APIs, and a great user experience. It’s a strong performer and an overall value choice.

Visit Smartproxy

Read the review

Bright Data logo
Rating 9.3 / 10
★★★★★ 4.7/5

Bright Data has one of the best infrastructure and tooling on the market. It offers not only proxies, but also proxy APIs, powerful proxy manager, and complete data sets.

Visit Bright Data

Read the review

Want more? View the full list of the NetNut alternatives.

Recommended for:

Data-hungry enterprises with strict compliance needs. 

Try NetNut
netnut-logo
Rating 9.0 / 10
★★★★★ 4.5/5
Try NetNut

Use the code PWYNTNT to get a 30% discount.

Picture of Chris Becker
Chris Becker
Proxy reviewer and tester.

The post NetNut Review appeared first on Proxyway.

]]> https://proxyway.com/reviews/netnut-proxies/feed 9 SOAX Review https://proxyway.com/reviews/soax-proxies https://proxyway.com/reviews/soax-proxies#respond Tue, 25 Jul 2023 13:38:02 +0000 https://stage-web2.proxyway.com/?post_type=reviews&p=8772 SOAX Review Residential and mobile proxies that put you in control. SOAX’s proxies work well and offer very flexible management options. Rating 9.0 / 10 ★★★★★ 4.5/5 Use the code Proxyway to get a 20% discount. Visit SOAX I remember first testing SOAX in 2021. Still a rookie provider, it already looked promising: the proxies […]

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soax logo new white

SOAX Review

Residential and mobile proxies that put you in control.

SOAX’s proxies work well and offer very flexible management options.

Rating 9.0 / 10
★★★★★ 4.5/5

Use the code Proxyway to get a 20% discount.

Visit SOAX

I remember first testing SOAX in 2021. Still a rookie provider, it already looked promising: the proxies rarely failed, offered flexible filtering options, and had decent management tools. Though painfully slow and still unfinished, the overall service was good enough for SOAX to become our Discovery of the Year.

Now, SOAX can no longer be called a newbie. It has significantly improved upon the weaknesses, snatching our Contender of the Year award in 2023. How does SOAX compare with other major providers? And has it grown strong enough to compete with the market leaders: Oxylabs, Bright Data, and Smartproxy?

Let’s find out.

News about SOAX

SOAX Acquires Rampage Proxies

The acquisition is set to expand and improve SOAX’s proxy server infrastructure.
  • Provider News

SOAX Acquires ProxyWow

The acquisition will strengthen SOAX’s ISP proxy network.
  • Provider News

SOAX (Re)Launches Web Unblocker

The web scraping API now performs better and supports more formats.
  • Provider News
Read all news

General Information

  • Country: UK
  • Founded: 2020
  • Proxy networks: Datacenter, ISP, residential, mobile
  • Web scrapers: General purpose, SERP, e-commerce & social media scraping APIs
  • Supporting tools: Proxy checker
  • Price range: Mid-market
  • Starting price: $4 (proxies), $15 (scrapers)
  • Payment methods: Credit card, PayPal, cryptocurrencies
  • Trial: 3 days & 100 MB for $1.99

SOAX is a UK-based company run by an international staff. Alongside proxy networks, the provider also sells web scraping APIs for various website groups and a no-code AI scraper under the DAT.AI brand.

The company started off as a mid-range provider, positioning itself in-between penny-pinching services with limited features like PacketStream and enterprise-facing behemoths, such as Bright Data or Oxylabs. After a foray into the premium territory, it has returned to the mid-market segment.

SOAX invests a lot into getting your eyeballs. You can find it on most review platforms like TrustPilot, G2, or Capterra, tech websites like Trustpilot, and even Sourceforge! At one point, the provider used questionable growth hack tactics, such as spamming its website with thin Google-oriented pages; but that remains in the past.

The SOAX of today looks solid. It has ethical guidelines, partners up with The World Ethical Data Forum, and runs a podcast covering ethics in data collection. (You can read or watch our interview on ethics with Stepan, SOAX’s CEO.) And while SOAX doesn’t disclose any concrete sources for its proxies, we know that it offers an SDK for developers to monetize their apps, such as free VPNs.

SOAX Residential Proxies

Residential proxies are SOAX’s flagship product. It consists of around 155 million addresses from various countries around the world. We have no idea how SOAX came up with this number, but it sounds way too big to be true.

Features

  • Advertised proxy pool: 155 million
  • Locations: 195+ countries
  • Filtering: Random, country, state, city, ASN
  • Rotation: Every request, 90-600 sec, as long as available
  • Concurrency: Unlimited
  • Traffic: Plan based
  • SOCKS5: ✅ (with UDP)
  • Authentication: Credentials, IP whitelist

The residential proxies cover most countries in the world. You might have trouble reaching remoter African locations, but the network has grown strong enough to provide an acceptable number of IPs nearly everywhere. You can check their coverage with available ASNs using a map on SOAX’s dashboard.

The targeting and rotation options are very generous. Few providers offer ASN targeting, and when they do, it significantly impacts the price. Furthermore, you can choose to keep an IP until it goes offline, rotate proxies on each connection request, or specify a custom duration. This level of control you get is pretty amazing.

Though advertised as unlimited, the proxies do have some limits, specifically concerning parallel requests. A basic plan gets you 300 ports (IPs you can access at the same time), and you’re advised not to go over 30 concurrent connections on each. Advanced packages increase the number.

SOAX’s residential proxies support HTTP(S) and SOCKS5 protocols. However, you can only use them to access website traffic through ports 80 and 443. So there’s not much difference between the two out of the box. You can get more ports open if your use case adheres to SOAX’s terms of use.

Both user:pass and whitelisted IP authentication are available. But to enable the former, you still have to whitelist an IP address first. Two IP slots are given for free; additional slots can be bought for an extra fee.

Pricing Plans

  • Model: PAYG, Subscription
  • Format: Traffic
  • Starting price: $4 for 1 GB
  • Trial: 100 MB for $1.99

SOAX offers monthly plans based on traffic, starting from $90. For this price, you get 25 GB of data ($3.6/GB) at your disposal. There’s also an option to pay as you go if your traffic needs are inconsistent.

The largest plan on display offers 800 GB of data at $2/GB. This isn’t enough for large-scale customers, but at this point they’re likely to strike a custom deal.

​​Aside from the public price, you can get small upgrades that are hard to notice until you look, such as more whitelisted IPs. However, foregoing them doesn’t impact the service in any meaningful way.

To put things into context, SOAX costs less than the big fish like Bright Data and even some mid-market providers. In short, the rates are attractive for what you get throughout the whole range.

Performance Benchmarks

We tested SOAX’s residential proxies in March 2023, so these results may be outdated.

#1: Pool size & composition

We ran 1M requests over 21 days using the unfiltered pool, 500,000 requests over 14 days using the country pools, and 140,000 connection requests over 7 days using the Australian pool. We enriched IP data with the IP2Location database.

GatewayUnique IPsResidential %
Random 620,81096.08% 
US 113,23161.51% 
UK 59,66099.41% 
Germany 118,40497.80% 
France 158,84598.28% 
India 59,74396.18% 
Australia 8,47799.15% 

SOAX’s residential proxy network has grown to be quite large. Throughout the testing period, we received over 50,000 unique IPs in most locations, and over 7,000 unique proxies in Australia. Compared to early 2022 when we previously tested the provider, it’s made significant improvements. 

That said, the IP database identified nearly 40% of SOAX’s US proxies as non-residential addresses. This is likely because the provider included ISP proxy servers in its pool, which sometimes have trouble with IP databases. 

soax residential pool comparison march 2023 residential country pool comparison

#2: Infrastructure performance

This benchmark shared the same parameters as the pool test. Our computer was located in Germany. We targeted a global CDN – it pinged a server nearest to the proxy IP and had a response size of several kilobytes.

GatewayAvg. success rateAvg. response time
Random99.03%1.05 s 
US98.29%0.95 s
UKs99.53%0.55 s 
Germany99.44%0.64 s
France99.55%0.55 s 
India98.58%1.81 s 
Australia99.30%1.65 s
The results were great. Our connection requests nearly always reached their target, and SOAX’s response time was under one second in all European locations. To give you some context, in early 2022 this same proxy network was several times slower. Now, it has almost caught up to the top residential proxy providers like Oxylabs and Bright Data.
soax success rate comparison soax response time comparison

#3: Performance with popular targets

We made ~2,600 connection requests to each target using US-filtered proxies and a non-headless Python scraper. Our computer was located in Germany. Note that your results may differ based on your web scraping setup.

WebsiteAvg. success rateAvg. response time
Amazon99.06%3.76 s 
Google98.15%1.88 s 
Social Media99.55%1.67 s 
Walmart99.51%2.39 s
Total99.07%2.43 s

The results were nearly flawless here, as well. We experienced very few connection errors, even when accessing hard targets like Google or the photo-focused social media network. Few other providers were able to match SOAX under the same parameters when we tested them for 2023’s Proxy Market Research.

SOAX Mobile Proxies

Mobile proxies are SOAX’s service for targets that regular residential IPs can’t crack. It’s one of the few peer-to-peer-based mobile proxy networks in the market. SOAX claims to control around 33 million IPs – as with the residential proxy network, you shouldn’t expect to get this many during daily use.

Features

  • Advertised proxy pool: 33 million
  • Locations: 195+
  • Filtering: Random, country, state, city, ASN
  • Rotation: Every request, 90-600 sec, as long as available
  • Concurrency: Unlimited
  • Traffic: Plan based
  • SOCKS5: ✅ (with UDP)
  • Authentication: Credentials, IP whitelist

SOAX has a unified system for its mobile and residential IPs, so they’re identical in terms of features. This means you get the same granular targeting options (including city and ASN), as well as flexible rotation settings.

The number of ports is limited, but it’s hardly an issue for mobile proxies, which are often used in a more reserved fashion compared to other proxy types.

Once again: if you care about the SOCKS5 protocol, note that it has very few ports open by default. It’s a good idea to ask SOAX if it’s possible to enable the ones you need before purchase.

Pricing Plans

  • Model: PAYG, subscription
  • Format: Traffic
  • Starting price: $4 for 1 GB ($4/GB)
  • Trial: 100 MB for $1.99

SOAX’s mobile profiles run on a subscription model that automatically renews every month until you cancel it. Starting with March 2025, you can also use the network without time commitments.

The cheapest mobile plan costs $90, or the same amount as access to SOAX’s residential proxies. Amazingly, the rates are also identical, making SOAX a great deal. Currently, these are some of the cheapest premium-level mobile proxies on the market.

Performance Benchmarks

We last tested SOAX’s mobile proxies in March 2023, so these results may be outdated.

#1: Pool size & composition

We ran 280,000 requests over 14 days using the unfiltered pool and country pools, and 140,000 connection requests over 7 days using the Australian pool. We enriched IP data with the IP2Location database.

GatewayUnique IPsMobile %
Random227,27498.02%
US39,60499.70%
UK10,80599.72%
Germany16,73099.11%
France21,77198.06%
India183,77199.91%
Australia3,09681.07%
SOAX’s proxy network is large enough for serious work in popular locations. With nearly 40,000 unique IPs in the US, it even managed to beat Bright Data, which could only muster ~8,200 during the same testing period (in March 2023). You’ll have the best experience in Eastern Europe, where SOAX has the largest presence.

#2: Infrastructure performance

This benchmark shared the same parameters as the pool test. Our computer was located in Germany. We targeted a global CDN – it pinged a server nearest to the proxy IP and had a response size of several kilobytes.

GatewayAvg. success rateAvg. response time
Random98.22%1.72 s 
US98.50%1.60 s 
UK98.31%1.40 s 
Germany98.16%1.33 s 
France98.13%1.37 s 
India96.98%2.33 s 
Australia98.73%2.02 s 
SOAX’s mobile proxies had a really high success rate, proving that the provider’s infrastructure works well. Though longer compared to the residential proxies, their response time is also relatively fast in the context of other mobile proxy networks: similar to Bright Data’s and up to 40% slower than Oxylabs’. 
soax mobile proxy success rate comparison soax mobile proxy response time comparison

#3: Performance with popular targets

We made ~2,600 connection requests to each target using US-filtered proxies and a non-headless Python scraper. Our computer was located in Germany. Note that your results may differ based on your web scraping setup.

WebsiteAvg. success rateAvg. response time
Amazon97.15%4.50 s 
Google95.78% 2.67 s
Social Media98.11%2.40 s 
Walmart98.44% 3.26 s 
Total97.37%3.21 s

The success rate was nearly flawless, showing that these IPs hadn’t experienced much abuse.

How to Use SOAX

This section shows what it’s like to use SOAX’s service, from registration to customer support.

Registration

To register with SOAX, you have to enter your full name and email address, then confirm the registration via an email. Alternatively, it’s possible to sign up with a Google account. 

SOAX requires undergoing a KYC check when you buy a plan, which involves sending your photo ID to a third-party service and even confirming a phone number.

Dashboard

SOAX’s dashboard is an elegant control panel that evidently received a lot of love from the creators. The dashboard covers all the basics one could expect: you can authenticate, set up a proxy server, buy a plan, read the help docs, and get support.

We especially liked the Online Check tab. It shows not only now many ASNs are online in each country but also their connection status. That’s not something we encounter often.

Another thing we need to emphasize is how attentive SOAX is to new users. Multiple tabs in the dashboard have interactive onboarding wizards that guide you through the hoops of getting accustomed with the service. The Intercom-based chat also attempts to settle you in via a drip message campaign, though we’re not sure if we like this part. Flashbacks to misuse from other websites.

soax dashboard main screen soax dashboard online checker soax dashboard wizard

Subscription Management

SOAX offers self-service for its proxy networks – it’s possible to buy a plan by yourself. This doesn’t apply to cryptocurrency payments, which require contacting support.

SOAX’s dashboard includes wallet functionality, so you can top up the account in advance to prevent charging your card multiple times. This is useful when you want to top up your traffic without getting a new plan. Just be aware that this process is manual, so your access can still be suspended if you’re not careful. 

The dashboard has a separate tab for viewing your balance, transaction history, and downloading invoices. 

Proxy Management

The proxy setup ritual here is pretty elaborate. Even though you can authorize using a username and password, you’ll still have to whitelist an IP address first. Team SOAX argue that this is to protect themselves and their users. We argue that they don’t like resellers. In any case, keep this in mind, even if SOAX mentions a workaround for people with dynamic IPs.

After whitelisting an IP address, you can set up a proxy server. There are two ways to do so: via the Login & Password flow or the IP Whitelist flow. In any case, you’ll have to choose a rotation time, specify the location and/or ISP, and then map them to the ports you have.

For example, with an allowance of 100 ports, we assigned ports 10060-10070 to Spain and 10040-10049 to the UK. Note that IP address settings override Login & Password, and the provider advises against using both at once.

You can also create a list of proxies and export it into a text file.

Finally, SOAX offers an API. It’s pretty basic and nothing to write home about. Perhaps acknowledging this, the provider has it disabled until you explicitly request access. According to the help docs, the API’s functions are limited to fetching lists of locations and ISPs. So, don’t expect too much from it.
soax dashboard proxy setup flow soax dashboard proxy export

Usage Tracking

One aspect that could be improved is visualization of data use. The provided graph is small and stingy. You can see how much traffic you’ve expended over a given period, but that’s pretty much it. SOAX could learn a thing or two in this regard, even if there’s no need to go all out like providers such as NetNut have.

soax dashboard data graph
This is the only graph for data visualization.

Documentation

SOAX has a documentation hub covering various aspects of its service. It includes:

  • an FAQ,
  • quick-start guide,
  • proxy setup instructions,
  • billing information,
  • API documentation,
  • integration tutorials, and
  • video guides.


The hub is pretty comprehensive: there are around 40 different integration guides, some of which provide instructions for multiple tools. Documentation is an area where SOAX has improved noticeably since we first tested the provider.

Hands-On Support

You can contact SOAX’s support via live chat, email, phone, or Telegram. The provider also specifies tickets in the SLA but selecting the Support tab in the dashboard simply activates the live chat. 

We contacted the support multiple times using the live chat functionality. The replies came quickly (one exception aside, within five minutes) and managed to answer our questions. All in all, SOAX’s support left us with a positive impression, at least during daytime in Europe.

Conclusion

In just a few years, SOAX has grown into a competent proxy provider and a strong competitor to most mid-range and premium services. While not without flaws, it keeps the qualities that made it special, while significantly improving on the weaknesses. At this point, SOAX is a well-rounded option for anyone that needs residential or mobile proxies.

SOAX Alternatives

smartproxy-logo
Rating 9.3 / 10
★★★★★ 4.7/5

Smartproxy is the first place to go if SOAX is not an option for you. It offers similar performance, great user experience, proxy-based tools and more features.

Visit Smartproxy

Read the review

Oxylabs logo
Rating 9.3 / 10
★★★★★ 4.6/5

Oxylabs is like a premium version of SOAX. It controls a significantly larger IP pool, and you can get specialized APIs that simplify web scraping.

Visit Oxylabs

Read the review

Bright Data logo
Rating 9.3 / 10
★★★★★ 4.7/5

Bright Data is one of the biggest player in the premium space. It offers more features, some powerful proxy management tools, and complete pre-scraped data sets.

Visit Bright Data

Read the review

Recommended for:

Anyone who needs precise location and session control.

Try SOAX
Use the code proxyway to get 20% off.
black soax logo
Rating 9.0 / 10
★★★★★ 4.5/5
Try SOAX
Use the code proxyway to get 20% off.
Picture of Adam Dubois
Adam Dubois
Proxy geek and developer.

The post SOAX Review appeared first on Proxyway.

]]> https://proxyway.com/reviews/soax-proxies/feed 0 Zyte Review https://proxyway.com/reviews/crawlera https://proxyway.com/reviews/crawlera#comments Tue, 21 Nov 2023 09:43:44 +0000 https://stage-web2.proxyway.com/?post_type=reviews&p=14069 Zyte Review Sophisticated API from the web scraping specialists. Zyte wraps website unblocking, data parsing, and browser management into one all-encompassing tool. Rating 8.8 / 10 ★★★★★ 4.4/5 Visit Zyte Zyte is a well-known name within web scraping circles, especially if you need e-commerce data. It used to offer a range of products which are now […]

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]]>
Zyte logo

Zyte Review

Sophisticated API from the web scraping specialists.

Zyte wraps website unblocking, data parsing, and browser management into one all-encompassing tool.

Rating 8.8 / 10
★★★★★ 4.4/5
Visit Zyte

Zyte is a well-known name within web scraping circles, especially if you need e-commerce data. It used to offer a range of products which are now being consolidated into one API. Powered by dynamic pricing, machine learning, and over 100 engineers, the API is envisioned to become the only tool necessary for extracting data off the web. 

In this review, we’ll take a closer look at Zyte API – what it can accomplish, how well, and whether you should use it in place of your own stack or one of the competing web scraping tools.

News about Zyte

Extract Summit 2024: A Recap

Our virtual impressions from Zyte’s annual web scraping event.
  • Conferences

Zyte Adds AI Scraping Functionality to Its API

The tool can now crawl, unblock, and parse websites using AI and an optional no-code interface.
  • Provider News

Extract Summit 2023: A Recap

Our (virtual) impressions from Zyte’s annual web scraping event.
  • Conferences
Read all news

General Information

Country Ireland
Founded 2007
Web scrapersGeneral-purpose API with data parsing functionality
Other servicesDatasets
Price rangeCheap-premium
Starting price$1
Payment methodsCredit card
Trial$5 credit

Zyte is an Irish web scraping company with over 200 employees around the world. It offers web scraping products and data services, mostly focusing on the e-commerce vertical.

Launched in 2007, Zyte can be considered one of the oldest running players in the field. It used to be known as ScrapingHub until a rebrand in early 2021. The company targets a wide range of customers with an emphasis on developers. It also has a strong knowledge of the legal challenges surrounding data collection, which is reflected in some of its policies.

Commercial products aside, Zyte maintains popular open source tools, such as the data collection framework Scrapy, together with several sandboxes for practicing web scraping skills. In addition, it runs one of the biggest annual conferences on web scraping called Extract Summit. 

Currently, Zyte’s focus is on perfecting its web scraping API. In 2023, it deprecated the long-running Crawlera (Smart Proxy Manager) and integrated the AI parsing capabilities of another product called Automatic Extraction. 

All in all, Zyte can be considered a reputable and established web data company able to rival industry giants like Bright Data and Oxylabs in its focus areas.

Zyte API

Zyte API remains the company’s main product. Though the tool primarily targets developers, it also supports a no-code interface. An early implementation is available for use with e-commerce websites.

Integration

Multiple integration methods available.

API: ✅ (real-time)

Proxy: ✅

No code: ✅

Other: Python library, Scrapy plugin

Zyte’s tool primarily integrates as an HTTP API. There’s an endpoint where you POST the API key, URLs you want to scrape, and optional parameters like JavaScript rendering or custom headers. The API receives the request, scrapes the target, and returns the result. 

Zyte has an API playground in the dashboard that automatically generates code snippets based on your chosen parameters. For advanced usage, it’s better to use the provider’s documentation.

zyte api playground
Zyte’s API playground.

Zyte has made a plug-in for Scrapy and an asyncio-based Python library as alternative integration methods. Scrapy seems to be the preferred option, considering how well it’s documented (and Zyte’s involvement in the project). 

There’s also proxy-like integration that resembles the discontinued Smart Proxy Manager. The current version omits some features like browser rendering, data parsing, and ability to create sessions. 

Finally, Zyte is experimenting with a no-code interface on the dashboard. It requires subscribing to a second product, Scrapy Cloud, and is able to scrape e-commerce product pages. You can select the number of requests, scraping strategy (HTTP library or headless), and geolocation. This method automatically crawls the website from the URL you provide.

zyte no code template
Zyte’s no-code template for e-commerce stores.

The interface looks like an interesting foray into no-code scraping. Zyte will surely add new templates with time, and it’s made a smart decision to expose the scraper’s underlying code to engineers who want more customization. However, there’s room for improvements: I don’t really like the requirement for a second subscription, that there’s no easy way to schedule requests or specify which particular pages to scrape (save from one seed URL).

Features

A customizable tool that automates away most proxy management.

Targets: Universal

Locations: 150+ with automatic selection
JavaScript rendering: ✅ (with browser interactions)

Concurrency: 500 req/minute

Output formats: HTML, PNG, JSON
Customization: Headers, cookies, device type, sessions

Zyte API is a general-purpose scraper, meaning it will attempt to deliver any page you throw its way. This separates it from specialized tools like SERP APIs that focus on one category of websites. 

Unlike the now-deprecated Smart Proxy Manager, this API fully manages proxy servers on your behalf. It automatically selects the necessary proxy type and even location based on the page if you don’t override the setting. 

The API chooses request headers, device type, and other basic parameters by itself. However, you’re free to provide custom headers, pass on cookies, and create sessions for targets that require it. 

In addition, Zyte API has the ability to render a page like a browser. At its basicmost, the feature works like a toggle. But Zyte goes a step further: it exposes interaction parameters like clicking on elements, waiting, and scrolling. One request gets 60 seconds of execution time. In addition, enterprise clients get access to a cloud-hosted Visual Studio Code environment to write full automation scripts.  

Zyte limits the number of requests to 500 per minute. It may be possible to increase this threshold upon request.

Structured Data

Three types of structured data from any website.

Data parsing: ✅

Supported websites: AI parser for e-commerce, news & job listings

Zyte API can return structured data. Unlike similar tools that offer parsers for individual targets, Zyte’s AI parser is for all pages with a particular data type. In late 2023, you could extract product pages, news articles, and job postings. 

You invoke the feature by including a parameter with the expected data type. Zyte’s machine learning engine processes the page and attempts to return structured data points based on the provider’s schema.  

It’s a great approach if you need to process a wide range of websites, but it may not be as accurate as tailor-made parsers.

Pricing Plans

Dynamic pricing based on commitment.

Model: Subscription, pay as you go

Format: Successful requests
Upsells: Browser scripting

Self-service: ✅
Starting price: $1
Trial: $5 credits

Zyte API uses an interesting pricing model that calculates the request price dynamically based on multiple factors. It considers website difficulty, the use of residential proxies, headless browsers, data extraction, and compute time for browser actions. 

You can influence the price by toggling JavaScript rendering, choosing whether to parse the URL, and configuring page interactions. But some factors will always remain outside your control. For example, the website may get harder to scrape for Zyte, which will increase the rate. In the same vein, it can also become cheaper. 

The description can make Zyte’s pricing sound confusing and unpredictable. In some measure, it is. To bring more clarity, the provider has built a dynamic pricing calculator. It lets you enter any domain, tick a few feature toggles, and then it spits out the provisional price.

zyte pricing calculator
The pricing calculator is necessary given Zyte’s complex model.

Zyte’s pricing is also dynamic in terms of plans. You can use the API freely for up to $25 per month and then pay once the billing period ends. Any more than that, and you’ll have to set a spending limit. This requires pre-paying half the limit’s amount at the beginning of the month. The more you choose, the bigger the volume discount you get, up to 70%. This effectively works as a monthly subscription. 

Zyte gives $5 of free credit for all customers. If you’re scraping simple websites with no rendering, this translates to thousands of scrapes. 

In general, Zyte’s model can be extremely price-efficient for simple websites, but the cost soars once you start enabling the premium features. Here’s an example. If you committed $100. at the end of 2023 this would have given you 715,000 requests to Amazon or 83,000 Nordstrom page scrapes. The latter target has tough protection and requires JavaScript.

Performance Benchmarks

Great results with all tested websites.

We last tested Zyte API in October 2023 for our proxy API research.

We made 1,800 requests to each of seven websites behind tough anti-bot systems like DataDome and Shape. 

 Avg. success rateAvg. response time
Amazon95.64%3.90 s
Google100%2.16 s
Photo-focused social media network (JS rendered)99.61%19.78 s
Kohls (Akamai, JS rendered)99.10%29.44 s
Nordstrom (Shape, JS rendered)99.38%20.42 s
Petco (DataDome, Cloudflare)94.68%3.49 s
Walmart (PerimeterX, ThreatMetrix)96.53%2.69 s
Overall97.82%11.70 s

Zyte API had excellent results with all targets: the success rate exceeded 95%, and it returned results in less than 30 seconds, even on websites that required rendering JavaScript. 

In a broader context, Zyte’s performance beat all similar tools from major competitors.

How to Use Zyte

Zyte provides a mature platform with extensive documentation for managing its services. However, interactions can sometimes feel clunky, and the customer support’s availability leaves things to be desired.

Registration

To register with Zyte, you’ll need to enter your first and last name, email address, and password. Alternatively, it’s possible to sign up using Google or GitHub accounts.

Dashboard

Zyte has a dashboard for interacting with its two products: Zyte API and Scrapy Cloud. Each is contained in a separate section. The API part lets you view usage statistics, use the API playground and pricing calculator, and manage your key. 

Furthermore, there’s a section for managing account and organization settings, as well as billing. It’s interesting that one account can be associated with multiple organizations, with their own product subscriptions and members. It goes the other way around, too – an organization can host several members with roles. The two roles are a regular member and an owner that can manage the billing details.

zyte dashboard main page
The dashboard’s main page. We’d like to see our subscription details here.

Subscription Management

To start using Zyte API, you’ll need to enter a payment method, which is invariably a credit card. Zyte will charge $1 to confirm the card, promptly refund it, and you’ll be able to start using the product. 

Zyte supports self-service, meaning that no interactions with people are necessary. There is no wallet functionality; so even though Zyte API can function based on a pay-as-you-go model, you’ll still be paying at a monthly cadence. 

Zyte allows viewing your billing history and ongoing expenditure on the dashboard. This information isn’t glanceable – rather, it’s hidden behind several navigation layers. Enterprise clients will also see their signed contracts.

zyte billing history zyte subscriptions window 2023 zyte contracts

Usage Tracking

Zyte provides detailed usage statistics on the dashboard. You can filter the data based on various metrics: website (all or up to five individual websites), features (such as headless and non-headless requests), request status, parsing type, and even request cost. 

The output will be displayed in a graph that can be further filtered by price, request count, or response time. There’s also a table that shows results on an individual request level, including the full URL, response time, and request ID for troubleshooting.

However, the usage tracking isn’t perfect: some data points can be slow to load, and Zyte displays information no older than the last month or the current billing period. In addition, you can’t export the table for easier processing. 

All in all, there’s a lot of granularity, but making full use of it isn’t always easy. 

For more general information about infrastructure performance, Zyte has a page with uptime statistics.

zyte usage stats
Zyte’s usage statistics are detailed but slow and cover only a month.

Documentation

Zyte has detailed documentation for using Zyte API. It provides not only API reference information but also a detailed account of the main features, migration instructions from similar tools, and a step-by-step usage tutorial. You should be able to find everything you need to start scraping with the API. 

Documentation aside, there’s also a knowledge base that the provider calls the Support Center. It’s evidently outdated – you’ll find nothing on Zyte API but will be able to read about products that are no longer available.  

Finally, you can watch one of Zyte’s many webinars. They cover topics like legal compliance, data maturity, and the use of Zyte API in various scenarios.

Hands-On Support

Zyte’s support system uses tickets that you can submit via the dashboard. The provider gives an SLA of one hour – or eight hours on weekends. Enterprise customers get a special treatment. 

This isn’t ideal – not only is the weekend support slow, but it’s also available only via an asynchronous contact method. In other words, you get no 24/7 support or live chat like with many proxy service providers. 

That said, another way to get help is by creating a thread on Zyte’s Support Center. But here, receiving a timely response is even harder. One user whose access was removed failed to receive help in four days (!), pointing out that it becomes impossible to use the ticketing system after your subscription ends. The support experience – at least for the person whose woes we’re recounting – was really bad.

zyte customer support
This client didn’t have a great experience.

Conclusion

Zyte’s API is a powerful tool that works impressively well and offers a rich selection of features. Some, like AI parsing and browser actions, are hard to find in competing offerings. 

Zyte’s dynamic pricing is currently another strong point if you’re scraping JavaScript-independent websites. Even then, it remains palatable, though the rates rise ten or more times. That said, expenses here can be harder to estimate than some companies would like.

From the user experience point of view, Zyte treats developers well, especially if you’re already invested in its Scrapy ecosystem. But the user experience can be clunky at times and the customer support was downright exasperating if you need urgent help during weekends or fall outside of the ticketing system. 

I’m curious to see how the no-code interface will pan out. It holds great promise for less technically-minded users while still giving engineers access to the underlying code. For now, the implementation works but hasn’t been fleshed out yet.

In summary, I enjoyed using Zyte API and consider it to be a strong choice for anyone looking to simplify their web scraping operations.

Zyte Alternatives

Oxylabs logo
Rating 9.3 / 10
★★★★★ 4.7/5

Oxylabs has several web scrapers with data parsing capabilities. They’re scalable, performance, and can structure many e-commerce stores automatically. 

Visit Oxylabs

Read the review

Bright Data logo
Rating 9.1 / 10
★★★★★ 4.5/5

Bright Data offers excellent general-purpose and search engine scrapers that integrate as proxies. It also has an IDE where you can built a crawler by yourself.

Visit Bright Data

Read the review

scraperapi logo
Rating 8.6 / 10
★★★★★ 4.3/5

ScraperAPI’s product is very cheap for simple websites and has developer-friendly documentation that covers multiple programming languages.

Visit ScraperAPI

Review coming soon

Recommended for:

Engineers that want to simplify their web scraping operations.

Visit Zyte
Zyte logo
Rating 8.8 / 10
★★★★★ 4.4/5
Visit Zyte
Picture of Adam Dubois
Adam Dubois
Proxy geek and developer.

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]]> https://proxyway.com/reviews/crawlera/feed 1 Webshare Review https://proxyway.com/reviews/webshare-proxies https://proxyway.com/reviews/webshare-proxies#comments Tue, 29 Aug 2023 09:04:18 +0000 https://stage-web2.proxyway.com/?post_type=reviews&p=10916 Webshare Review True self-service powered by quality datacenter, ISP, and residential proxies. Freemium access, flexible subscription management, and empowering user interface make Webshare a strong choice for users of all sizes. Rating 8.8 / 10 ★★★★★ 4.4/5 Visit Webshare Webshare is an up-and-coming provider that focuses on building a strong and competitively priced static proxy infrastructure. It’s […]

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Webshare Review

True self-service powered by quality datacenter, ISP, and residential proxies.

Freemium access, flexible subscription management, and empowering user interface make Webshare a strong choice for users of all sizes.

Rating 8.8 / 10
★★★★★ 4.4/5
Try Webshare

Webshare is an up-and-coming provider that focuses on building a strong and competitively priced static proxy infrastructure. It’s a go-to choice for nearly 60,000 paying users and even Fortune 500 companies. 

What distinguishes Webshare from other proxy companies? The provider offers freemium datacenter proxies, absolute self-service to its customers, and customizable subscription management, from IP refresh frequency to freely available proxy rotation even for its static proxy lists.

Is Webshare worth considering? Let’s find out.

News about Webshare

Webshare Cuts Prices, Increases Residential Proxy Network, Adds Enterprise plan

Three provider’s products get up to 70% cheaper, and the residential pool reaches 30 million IPs.
  • Provider News
Read all news

General Information

CountryUnited States
Founded2018
Proxy networks
Datacenter (shared, dedicated, rotating)
Residential
ISP (shared, dedicated, rotating)
Price range
Entry/mid-market
Starting price
$1
Pricing model
Subscription
Payment methodsCredit card
TrialFree plan with 10 datacenter IPs

Webshare is a Silicon Valley-based company founded in 2018 by Utku Zihnioglu. At the end of 2022, the company was acquired by another major proxy and web data collection provider Oxylabs. But the deal didn’t impact the way Webshare operates, and it still remains a separate entity.

Webshare first sold only datacenter proxies, and to this day, it remains the driving force behind the service. According to a survey the provider filled out for 2023’s Proxy Market Research, shared proxies generated three-quarters of its revenue in 2022. 

The provider also offers ISP proxies and residential IP addresses. So, it’s logical to expect mobile proxies in the long run, and maybe even some web scraping tools.

Webshare positions itself as an affordable proxy provider and stays true to its claims for the datacenter and residential proxies. The company primarily targets entry and mid-level clients. 

Even though the provider is a newcomer, it managed to sweep use cases like e-commerce scraping, multiple account management, and general-purpose web scraping. Webshare doubled its revenue in 2022 and had ambitious plans to reach the same goal for 2023. 

However, some live communication would be a nice touch – now you can reach Webshare’s customer support only via email, and its three social media profiles – X. Corp (former Twitter), LinkedIn and Facebook – are stone dead.

Webshare Proxy Networks

Webshare offers three kinds of proxy servers:

  • Datacenter proxies from around 40 countries in six continents. They come in lists of shared, semi-dedicated, dedicated IPs, and a special plan that includes Google-verified proxies.
  • ISP proxies that are mostly located in the US and take the same formats (excluding the special plan).
  • Residential proxies from real user devices around the world.
webshare proxy networks
Webshare's proxy networks.

We cover individual proxy types in the expandable drop-downs below:

Webshare’s datacenter proxy service comes in four flavors: 

  1. Shared, which provides access to a list of proxies that you share with more than two people. It’s the cheapest option but also most prone to abuse. 
  2. Private, where the proxies are shared with up to two other people. Naturally, they cost slightly more and can be expected to perform slightly better. 
  3. Dedicated, which gives you exclusive control over your IP list. 
  4. Verified, which includes shared proxies that Webshare constantly checks for Google compatibility. If they get blocked, the provider will replace affected proxies free of charge.


Webshare compares the effectiveness of verified IPs to web unblockers (scraping APIs that take the form of proxy servers). We don’t really buy this, as unblockers do much more than plain proxies. 

Pool Size & Coverage

Over 40 freely selectable countries to choose from.

CountriesTargetingDistribution
40+ in six continentsCountryFree selection during purchase

Webshare’s datacenter proxies are available in around 40 locations. The concrete number changes based on stock availability and service type. The private and dedicated proxies had fewer locations when we checked them, but the number still exceeded 30. Having said that, some had under 50 IPs available. 

Many of the IP addresses are based in the US, but you can also choose targets from five other continents, mostly Europe. There’s an option to specify how many IPs you want from each country, but you can’t go further and select individual cities. 

Features

Many customization options.

RotationTrafficConcurrencyProtocolsOther
Static, every request250 GB to unlimited500 to thousands of threadsHTTP
SOCKS5		Network priority, custom refresh duration

Webshare’s datacenter proxies are static by default, but the dashboard also gives you tools to rotate the IP list with every connection request if needed.

Unlike some other datacenter proxy vendors, Webshare takes a modular approach to functionality. The basic options limit traffic and threads, and you can increase or even lift these limits by paying extra. There’s also an interesting checkbox that gives you network priority over other users, potentially decreasing latency. 

Webshare’s modular approach extends to list refresh functionality. In addition to the standard options of keeping your list or updating it with a new subscription cycle, you can freely choose:

  • how often automatic list refreshes should occur, up to every five minutes,
  • how many on-demand refreshes you need, up to 50 or more,
  • how many individual IPs you’ll want to replace, up to 2,500 or more.

This flexibility enables interesting configurations. For example, you can get a plan with ten proxies and choose to automatically refresh the list every ten minutes. This will give you access to a large pool of IPs over time. It’s great to have so much choice. 

Integration & Use

Direct and gateway access available.

Connection methodFormatAuthentication
Direct
Backconnect		IP:Port
p.webshare.io:Port		Credentials, IP whitelist

Webshare’s datacenter proxies can integrate either directly as a simple proxy list, or using a backconnect gateway address. In theory, the list should be faster (fewer middlemen), but it doesn’t rotate. 

If you choose the backconnect method, Webshare will give you the same address and port number, and then you’ll choose different IPs by modifying the username: USERNAME-1, USERNAME-2, and so on. Rotation with every connection request adds -rotate to the username. 

Authentication through an IP address generates different port numbers for each IP, without you needing to enter a username and password. This applies both to direct and gateway connections. 

Pricing Plans

Can be extremely cheap if you don't need the bells and whistles.

 SharedPrivateDedicatedVerified
ModelSubscription
FormatPay per IP
Starting price$1 for 10 IPs
& 250 GB		$18.52 for 25 IPs & 250 GB  $26.60 for 20 IPs & 250 GB$8.67 for 100 IPs & 250 GB 
UpsellsMore traffic, threads, refreshes, network priority
Trial10 free proxies with 500 MB monthly traffic

Webshare uses a subscription-based pricing model, but it isn’t quite the same as what customers are used to seeing. That’s because you get full control of your subscription. 

The price considers not only the number of proxies you buy but also bandwidth, refreshes, and additional features like high priority network. Depending on the proxy type, the cost for each modifier differs. 

The plans use a pay-per-IP pricing structure. An IP’s cost can be absurdly low, letting you buy 100 shared IPs for less than 3 cents each. But at this point, you’ll probably want more traffic and threads, in which case the cost rises to more respectable $.21/IP. 

Even the Verified proxy product is surprisingly affordable, especially considering that Webshare undertakes to replace IPs for free. However, fully decked-out dedicated proxy servers rival premium providers like Oxylabs and Bright Data in price. 

While Webshare has a list of plans it recommends, you can also get a custom amount of proxies – sometimes as few as one. There are price floors in place, so this approach is often less economical than going large. 

All in all, Webshare’s prices are extremely affordable if you’re careful with the extra functionality. The provider charges less than most premium or mid-range alternatives. 

Performance Benchmarks

Reliable infrastructure performance.

We last tested Webshare’s datacenter proxies in March 2024, for the annual Proxy Market Research. We used a Verified plan with 10 IPs that refreshed every five minutes. 

#1: Infrastructure performance

We ran 50,000 connection requests using US-located shared proxies. Our computer was in the US. We targeted a global CDN – it pinged a server nearest to the proxy IP and had a response size of several kilobytes.

Avg. success rateAvg. response time
99.93%0.67 s

Webshare had a great success rate, proving that its datacenter proxies rarely fail. However, the response time was on the slower side – competitors like Oxylabs and Bright Data completed requests over twice faster. 

#2: Download speed

We tested 10 IPs using Hetzner’s 100 MB Ashburn benchmark.

Avg. without proxiesAvg. download speed
Slowest IP
32.56 MB/s21.18 MB/s0.10 MB/s

The proxies had fast download speed on average and should be enough for bandwidth-intensive tasks. Having said that, the slowest of the 10 IPs was less performant that what we’d have preferred. 

#3: Performance with popular targets

We made ~2,600 connection requests to each target using US proxies and a non-headless Python scraper. Our computer was located in the US. Note that your results may differ based on your web scraping setup.

 Avg. success rateAvg. response time
Amazon87.81%2.68 s
Google60.04% 1.21 s
Homedepot73.44%1.06 s
Total73.76%1.65 s
Webshare’s proxies displayed a solid performance with Amazon.  On the other hand, every third request with Google failed, which isn’t ideal considering that we were using a Google-verified plan. Still, the results are decent for the price. 

Webshare’s ISP proxies follow the same conventions as the datacenter product. You can buy a list of IPs that are shared with many people, up to two other people, or no one but yourself. 

Webshare doesn’t sell verified ISP proxies yet, but it’d be logical to expect this option in the future. 

Pool Size & Coverage

Mostly in the US for now.

CountriesTargetingDistribution
US, ItalyCountryFree selection during purchase

When we last checked in June 2024, Webshare had ISP proxies in only two locations. The majority were concentrated in the US, without an option to choose a particular city or ISP. 

Features

Very flexible, especially when it comes to IP refresh.

RotationTrafficConcurrencyProtocolsOther
Static, every request250 GB to unlimited500 to thousands of threadsHTTP
SOCKS5		Network priority, custom refresh duration

Webshare’s ISP proxies are static by default, but they can also rotate using an option provided in the dashboard. 

The base configuration imposes various limits on traffic, threads, and even network priority. You can lift them by paying extra. This may seem unsavory for some, but it can save you a lot of money if you don’t need the full deal. 

Webshare’s modular approach also affects refresh options. You’re allowed to freely select:

  • how often automatic list refreshes should occur, up to every five minutes,
  • how many on-demand refreshes you need, up to 50 or more,
  • how many individual IPs you’ll want to replace, up to 2,500 or more.

This flexibility unlocks interesting configurations. Instead of buying a fixed list, you can get a plan with ten proxies and automatically refresh the list every ten minutes. This will give you access to a large pool of IPs over time.  

Integration & Use

Optional rotation available.

Connection methodFormatAuthentication
Direct
Backconnect		IP:Port
p.webshare.io:Port		Credentials, IP whitelist

You can get direct access to the ISP proxies, or use them behind a backconnect gateway server. The first method should be faster, but it can’t use Webshare’s in-built rotation.

Authentication through an IP address generates different port numbers for each IP, without you needing to enter a username and password. This applies both to direct and gateway connections. 

Pricing Plans

Very cheap shared and semi-shared plans.

 SharedPrivateDedicated
ModelSubscription
FormatPay per IP
Starting price$6 for 20 IPs
& 250 GB		$23.16 for 25 IPs
& 250 GB		$42 for 20 IPs
& 250 GB
UpsellsMore traffic, threads, refreshes, network priority
Trial–

Webshare follows the same pricing logic here as with its datacenter proxies. The plans are either IP or traffic-based, and different modifiers add up to the price. 

In a broader context, Webshare outprices most cheaper alternatives like IPRoyal if you disable all the toggles. All in all, these proxies are a pretty good deal.

Performance Benchmarks

High success rate, major US ISPs.

We last tested Webshare’s ISP proxies in November 2023, for the ISP proxy research. Our plan included 5,000 shared IPs in the US.

#1: Pool quality

Residential percentage*IPs under a top 10 ASN**
15.45% 100%

* IP2Location database, Usage type data point, ISP, ISP/MOB, MOB IPs.
** Comcast, Charter, AT&T, Verizon, Cox, Altice, Lumen (CenturyLink), Frontier, Mediacom, Astound (RCN).

The IP2Location database identified few of the proxies as belonging to landline or mobile internet companies. While not ideal, it shouldn’t cause issues with many websites – they tend to focus on the ASN data point.

Here, Webshare didn’t disappoint: every single one of its 5,000 IPs was associated a top 10 US internet service provider. 

#2: Infrastructure performance

We made ~780,000 requests over 7 days. Our computer was located in Germany. We targeted a global CDN – it pinged a server nearest to the proxy IP and had a response size of several kilobytes.

Avg. success rate Avg. response time
(IP list)		 Avg. response time (gateway)
99.82%  0.76 s 0.96 s

Webshare’s ISP proxies barely ever failed on their own. They also had a fast response time, especially considering that we connected from Germany to the US. 

Note that using a gateway server instead of direct connection added nearly 200 MS of latency. If speed is a concern, it might be a good idea to set up your own rotation logic. 

Residential proxies are the latest addition to Webshare’s line-up. They probably come from Oxylabs, which explains the large proxy pool. 

Pool Size & Coverage

Many countries, few filtering options.

Advertised pool sizeLocationsTargeting options
30 millionGlobalRandom, country

Webshare advertises to control around 30 million IPs from real devices. Of course, this being a residential proxy network, only some of the proxies are available at a given time. 

You can choose from most locations around the world, but available filtering options end at the country level. City, ASN, or ZIP level targeting aren’t supported at this time. 

Features

Two rotation options, limitations that can be lifted.

RotationTrafficConcurrencyOther
Every request, sticky sessionsPlan based500 to thousands of threadsNetwork priority

Webshare’s residential proxies can rotate with every connection request, and it’s also possible to establish sticky sessions. However, you can’t choose their custom duration. 

The default configuration gives you 500 threads to work with. The number isn’t high, but it’s possible to increase it by paying extra. In the same way, you can enable network priority, which in theory should make the connection faster.

Integration & Use

Multiple protocols and authentication methods.

Connection methodFormatProtocols
Authentication
Gateway addressUSERNAME-de-gb-us-1:PASSWORD
@p.webshare.io:80		HTTP
SOCKS5		Credentials
IP whitelisting

Like all residential proxy networks, Webshare uses a backconnect gateway address. You send requests to it, and the gateway automatically chooses which end-user IP to connect through. 

To access the network, you can use either credentials or whitelist an IP. The first option modifies the username to reflect your configuration: country filtering adds, for example, -us, and sticky sessions add a number. It’s interesting that you can select multiple countries at once – not every provider supports this.

Whitelisted IP authentication removes the need for a username and password. This way, you choose your settings on the dashboard (countries, rotation), and Webshare generates different ports for sticky sessions. It’s possible to have only one active configuration using the whitelisted approach. 

The SOCKS5 protocol is supported, but it only accepts TCP traffic (no UDP). 

Pricing Plans

Competitive in lower ranges.

ModelFormatModifiersStarting priceTrial
SubscriptionTrafficMore threads, network priority$7 for 1 GB–

With the residential proxies, you won’t pay per IP; instead, Webshare charges for traffic. The price depends on additional features like network priority, threads, and unlimited IP authorization. 

Webshare used to charge the same price per unit ($15/GB) as premium providers like Oxylabs and Bright Data. But after cutting down the price by half, it now stands next to the affordable companies like Smartproxy and IPRoyal. 

Overall, Webshare has competitive prices, especially at the lower end. The rates drop at scale, so the proxies can be a viable choice for large use cases, too. But the competition toughens into hundreds of gigabytes, and some options scale better at one terabyte and up.

Performance Benchmarks

Large pool, great infrastructure success rate, mediocre response time.

We last tested Webshare’s residential proxies in March 2024, for the annual Proxy Market Research.

#1: Pool size & composition

GatewayParametersUnique IPsResidential %*
Global1.2M req, 21 days850,63196.01%
US560k req, 14 days 251,45693.35%
UK560k req, 14 days79,05597.65%
EU**1.2M req, 14 days370,94898.10%
Brazil560k req, 14 days 219,64297.61%
India560k req, 14 days327,33998.66%
Australia140k req, 7 days27,49998.04%

* IP2Location database, Usage type data point, ISP, ISP/MOB, MOB IPs.
** Combines Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands.

webshare residential pool comparison march 2024 residential country pool comparison
Webshare had a large residential proxy pool in all locales, including remoter countries like Australia. It managed to match or even beat premium providers like Bright Data and Oxylabs.

#2: IP quality

We checked 20,000 proxies in the Global pool and 10,000 proxies in the US using the IPQualityScore database.

 Avg. fraud scoreProxy %Frequent abuser
Global47.9450.51% 1,580
US57.5159.68%1,322
webshare residential global fraud comparison march 2024 webshare residential US fraud comparison march 2024

While Webshare’s residential pool didn’t have the lowest fraud score, the results were solid. It’s safe to say that these proxies aren’t abused very much, especially compared to providers like IPRoyal. 

#3: Infrastructure performance

This benchmark shared the same parameters as the pool test. Our scraper was located in Germany for the Global pool, and we also had scrapers in the US and Singapore for individual country pools. We targeted a global CDN – it pinged a server nearest to the proxy IP and had a response size of several kilobytes.

GatewayAvg. success rateAvg. response time
Random99.35%1.67 s
US99.72%1.10 s
UK99.77%1.06 s
EU99.59%1.16 s
Brazil98.09%1.90 s
India97.36%2.72 s
Australia99.72%2.07 s
webshare residential success rate comparison march 2024 webshare residential response time comparison march 2024

The residential proxy network had a very high success rate that’s near the top of our benchmarks. They worked especially well in the US and European locations. However, Webshare’s response time was on the slower side.

#4: Performance with popular targets

We made ~2,600 connection requests to each target using US-filtered proxies. Our computer was located in the US. Note that your results may differ based on your web scraping setup.

WebsiteAvg. success rateAvg. response time
Amazon96.21%4.21 s
Google69.91%2.21 s
Social Media92.75%4.15 s
Total86.29%3.52 s

The proxies performed very well with Amazon and the social media network. They did face some issues with Google though, where nearly a third of the requests failed. For context, the best-performing providers managed to reach over 90% success rate with the same scraper configuration. 

How to Use Webshare

This section covers different parts of the service: from subscription and proxy management to customer support. 

Registration

All Webshare’s products can be bought through self-service. So it won’t take long to set up. You’ll have to fill in a registration form, confirm your email, and you’re in. 

Dashboard

Webshare’s dashboard includes everything you need to manage your proxies. You can see what type of plan you have, there’s a section for subscription management, proxy setup, usage statistics, and API documentation.

webshare dashboard main screen
The dashboard's main screen.

Subscription Management

First things first, Webshare allows only one active plan at a time. It means you won’t be able to buy different proxy products. So, this could be a setback if you need to use different types of proxies. A way out is to create another account under a different email address. 

The provider supports complete self-service for all its proxies. Subscription management is divided into three parts: My Plan, Browse Plan, and Invoices. 

Browse Plans tab is where you build your subscription. Here you can choose the proxy type, the number of proxies you need, and bandwidth. Webshare gives its customers a unique opportunity to see how many IPs are available in each country.

webshare dashboard available ips
Choosing the location of proxies via the Browse Plans tab.

The provider also offers different refresh options – automatic, on-demand, and individual IP replacements. If you need additional features like IP authorization, unlimited threads and higher network uptime, you can add them as well. Let’s take the residential proxy example. Without the named features you would pay $7/GB, but when you enable the toggles, the dashboard calculates a different price which is $20.62/GB. 

webshare dashboard refresh feature webshare dashboard additional features

After you’re done building your plan, you can see all the necessary information under My Plan. It displays the fee, your wallet balance, and other plan details. In any case, you can customize your choices after the purchase.

webshare dashboard plan details
Your plan details.

Finally, the Subscription tab has a separate section for invoices where you can add or change your billing information, and see transaction history.

Proxy Management

Setting up proxies on Webshare is easy enough. You can simply navigate to the Proxy tab and choose one of three options: list, rotating proxy, or settings.

The List tab shows your proxy list. Here, you can select an authentication method (IP or credentials), proxy type (HTTP or SOCKS5), and connection method (direct or backbone). Also, depending on your subscription, you can replace your proxies with a single click. You can then export the generated list.

Webshare proxy management window
Your proxy list.

If you want to rotate your static proxy list, go to the Rotating Proxy tab. This feature will assign you a new IP address from your proxy list whenever a request is made. IPs are shuffled automatically, so you don’t have to do it by hand. 

webshare dashboard rotating endpoint
Rotating endpoint.

You can rotate the address by creating an endpoint. Fill in the proxy address, port, username and password, and you’re good to go. The page also includes configuration examples in eight popular programming languages.

Under Settings, you can see replaced IP addresses, IP authorization, and general information. Here, you also configure your session and idle timeout durations.

webshare dashboard session idle timeout
Session and idle timeout.

Usage Tracking

You’ll find the usage graphs in the dashboard. 

Webshare has visual usage graphs in the dashboard that include proxy and bandwidth usage, as well as error ratio. It’s pretty useful that you can see how many requests you’ve made in total, and the number of proxies you’ve used. Additionally, you can filter the graphs by date.

webshare dashboard usage graph
Usage graphs.

API Access

If you want to access your proxies programmatically, Webshare offers an API available to every customer. The API comes with features covering various aspects of the service.

Its functions include registration and login, managing notifications, creating user profiles and sub-users, setting traffic limits, viewing proxy configurations, and more. The API also provides code examples in cURL and major programming languages like Python and JavaScript.

webshare api documentation
API documentation.

Documentation

If you need help, your first resource should be Webshare’s Help Center page. It includes three sections: billing and payments, set up and proxy configuration, as well as proxy issues. Each has articles with answers and instructions.

Else, there’s a Help button at the bottom of your dashboard. You can quickly find the same answers by typing your inquiry. For example, you can search for “refresh my proxy list” and get a list of suggested articles.

webshare help button An answer to a question How to refresh my proxy list on Webshare

Hands-On Support

Customers can reach Webshare by email or live chat. The latter option is available only when logged in and has a chatbot as the first line of support. It’s available 24/7; if the bot fails to help you, the provider’s customer support agents work 24/5. 

According to Webshare’s website, the agents responds to each request within 24 hours. That’s quite long if you’re having trouble using their services. However, we’ve found that at least for basic queries, the chatbot is actually useful at giving relevant answers. 

Conclusion

Even though Webshare is a newcomer in the proxy market, it came with a blast offering something that veteran providers couldn’t manage to implement over the years. And that something is a flexible pricing model and absolute self-service. 

Webshare mainly focuses on datacenter proxy infrastructure, but its residential and ISP proxy networks can easily compete with some premium and mid-range proxy providers. 

The provider tries to make the user experience as easy as possible, so even beginners will find the service fitting. But this comes out of necessity since Webshare doesn’t have 24/7 customer support.

Praises aside, Webshare doesn’t have many features. You won’t be able to target cities, states or ASNs, its ISP products have poor location coverage, and additional features cost extra. In general, it might not be the best option for location-sensitive use cases. 

Otherwise, Webshare is one of the better entry choices in the market. Its shared datacenter, residential, and ISP proxies showed great results during our tests, and the plans are accessible to users of all sizes. 

Webshare Alternatives

smartproxy-logo
Rating 9.3 / 10
★★★★★ 4.7/5

Smartproxy offers a robust residential & mobile proxy infrastructure with more features. The service targets mid-sized customers and goes the extra mile for customer service.

Visit Smartproxy

Read the review

Oxylabs logo
Rating 9.3 / 10
★★★★★ 4.7/5

Oxylabs’ service may be less customizable by yourself compared to Webshare. But it  offers a huge network of proxies, great performance, and a more personal touch.  

Visit Oxylabs

Read the review

rayobyte logo
Rating 8.6 / 10
★★★★★ 4.3/5

Rayobyte has a robust datacenter and ISP proxy infrastructure with many features out of the box. It is pricier at the lower end but scales well at hundreds of GBs.

Visit Rayobyte

Read the review

Recommended for:

Anyone looking for affordable and fully-customizable proxy services.

Try Webshare
Webshare
Rating 8.8 / 10
★★★★★ 4.4/5
Try Webshare
Picture of Adam Dubois
Adam Dubois
Proxy geek and developer.

The post Webshare Review appeared first on Proxyway.

]]> https://proxyway.com/reviews/webshare-proxies/feed 6 Nimble Review https://proxyway.com/reviews/nimbleway-review https://proxyway.com/reviews/nimbleway-review#respond Thu, 27 Jun 2024 08:06:49 +0000 https://proxyway.com/?post_type=reviews&p=22521 Nimble Review A new premium provider with fancy tricks up its sleeve. Nimble’s platform and AI-based functionality make it a promising alternative to established enterprise proxy vendors.  Rating 8.7 / 10 ★★★★★ 4.4/5 Use the code x to get y discount. Visit Nimbleway Nimble’s marketing promises you the world, especially if you’re into AI. Here’s […]

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]]>
nimbleway logo no background

Nimble Review

A new premium provider with fancy tricks up its sleeve.

Nimble’s platform and AI-based functionality make it a promising alternative to established enterprise proxy vendors. 

Rating 8.7 / 10
★★★★★ 4.4/5

Use the code x to get y discount.

Try Nimbleway

Nimble’s marketing promises you the world, especially if you’re into AI. Here’s a service that’s modern, seamless, and – wait for it – powered by artificial intelligence every step of the way. It almost makes other companies in the field look obsolete.

Should you buy into the hype? And how well does Nimble truly perform compared to the best proxy and web data infrastructure providers? Well, this is exactly what we’re about to find out.

Our current review focuses on Nimble’s residential proxy service, but we hope to add more products later in 2024. Let’s go!

General Information

CountryUS 
Founded2022
Proxy networksResidential
Proxy API (Unlocker Proxy)
Other servicesGeneral purpose, SERP, e-commerce, maps APIs
Supporting tools–
Price rangePremium
Starting price$8
Payment methodsCredit card, PayPal
Trial7 days

Nimble is a US-registered company, with a second office and a large number of employees in Israel. The business was established in 2022, making it one of the newer providers of web scraping infrastructure.

In these few years, Nimble has managed to achieve a lot: receive multiple investments from venture capital funds, launch two lines of products (proxies and web scraping APIs), and hire 80 employees, with 18 additional openings in June 2024. In short, Nimble is scaling hard and fast, to the alarm of its competitors. 

What competitors are we talking about? Mostly premium companies like Bright Data, Oxylabs, and NetNut, which first and foremost deal with business clients and draft contracts with four or more digits in them. 

It’s a tough segment to be in, but Nimble comes prepared with two aces up its sleeve: its platform and AI layer. The former aims to ensure a great developer experience; the latter outfits Nimble’s APIs (and even proxies!) with magic AI sauce that should elevate them above the incumbents. 

In addition, Nimble’s marketing does a terrific job at persuading that you’re dealing with a qualitatively different company, a modern proxy & web data infrastructure provider. (The homepage alone mentions AI over a dozen times.)

Do Nimble’s optimizations really make a difference? Frankly, it’s too early to tell. But the narrative does seem to sell well, especially in attracting AI-oriented businesses – which are a lucrative customer to have right now. 

All in all, Nimble is definitely worthy of attention. If its growth trajectory keeps pace, the company should start seriously threatening the major proxy providers soon enough. 

News about Nimbleway

SOAX Acquires Rampage Proxies

The acquisition is set to expand and improve SOAX’s proxy server infrastructure.
  • Provider News

SOAX Acquires ProxyWow

The acquisition will strengthen SOAX’s ISP proxy network.
  • Provider News

Oxylabs Launches a Product Suite for Video Data

High bandwidth proxies, YouTube API & video datasets aim to satiate AI’s demand for multimodal data.
  • Provider News
Read all news

Nimble Proxy Networks

Residential proxies are Nimble’s only proxy network. The company also offers something called Unblocker Proxy, but it’s more like a web scraper packaged in a proxy server format. 

For now, we’ll be focusing on the residential service. 

nimbleway proxy networks
Nimble's proxy networks.
Residential

Nimble doesn’t specify how it sources residential IPs. Some research reveals that a large part comes from the Salad app, where people voluntarily share network and GPU resources for pay. 

Pool Size & Coverage

Advertised pool size Locations Targeting options
Not specified Global Random, country, state, city

We have no concrete numbers for the proxy pool. There can be several reasons why Nimble chooses not to advertise them: first, the pool may not be very big yet; and second, the provider focuses on the results its proxies can deliver through features like Nimble’s IP optimization engine. 

What we do know is that the network covers most countries around the world. It’s possible to target them up to the city level, which is a market standard by now. 

Features

RotationTrafficConcurrencyOther
Every request,
1-30 mins,
geo-sessions		Plan basedUnlimited Toggle IPv6, 
optimization engine

Nimble can rotate proxies with every connection request, and it’s also possible to establish sticky sessions. The dashboard allows specifying various intervals that range between one and 30 minutes. 

It’s nice that you can choose what happens when a proxy peer goes offline. The options include simply replacing the IP, choosing an IP within the same ASN, or failing the request altogether. 

In addition to regular sticky sessions, Nimble offers something it calls geo-sessions. This feature picks out only proven stable IPs, relaxes rotation triggers, and when the need arises, replaces the proxy with another one that mimics the same parameters: ISP and close geographic proximity.

Nimble claims that geo-sessions should last for days or even weeks, and that they resemble natural ISP IP rotation patterns. In theory, this is great for extended tasks like account management. 

The features don’t end here. Another welcome option is the ability to enable IPv6 proxies. If you want to stick with IPv4 for now, simply untick the box in the dashboard. You can’t do it the other way around, though, and keep only IPv6 proxies. This could be a great addition in the future when IPv6 gains more ground. 

However, the star of the show is Nimble’s IP optimization engine. It lets you choose from a preset: SERP, social media, e-commerce, etc. and then applies AI magic to optimize the proxies for that particular use case.

nimbleway optimization engine
Nimble's Optimization Engine can automatically fine-tune your proxies for various uses.

Frankly, we didn’t notice much of a difference with the engine on or off, but our target benchmarks are of limited scope. Nimble explained to us that the optimization engine learns the customer behavior, so its value should become evident over time.

At the very least, the idea is great, and it proves that there’s still much room left for improving proxy servers. 

Integration & Use

Connection methodFormatProtocols
Authentication
Backconnect gatewayaccount-ID-pipeline-NAME-
country-US-state-KS-city-wichita:
[email protected]:7000		HTTPCredentials
IP whitelisting

You can access Nimble’s residential proxies by connecting through a backconnect gateway server. It gives you one endpoint and port, and then you configure the location, sessions, etc. by adding parameters to the username. 

Similarly to Bright Data, Nimble uses a concept called Pipelines. They essentially function as sub-users, where you can create different proxy configurations, impose limits, and keep tabs on traffic use. We’ll cover them more in the section on user experience. 

If your software fails to support username authentication, Nimble has you covered as well. The provider’s system allows generating up to 1,000 ports that inherit the Pipeline’s settings, without the need to use credentials. You can freely distribute these ports among the pipelines you’ve created.  

The SOCKS5 protocol isn’t available for now, though Nimble promises it’s in progress.

Pricing Plans

ModelFormatModifiersStarting priceTrial
PAYG
Subscription 		Traffic–$820 MB for 7 days

Like pretty much all residential proxy services, Nimble charges for traffic use. You can pay as you go or subscribe to a plan and get more favorable rates at the cost of flexibility. There’s a possibility to carry over traffic, but it becomes unlocked only at enterprise levels of scale. 

Similarly to Bright Data, Nimble’s pricing is platform rather than product based. Basically, plans unlock and scale all products at once, without the need to subscribe individually.

This is amazing when you’re interesting in using multiple products from the same provider, and it can enable interesting interplay within the ecosystem. For example, the same Bright Data allows looping through increasingly expensive proxy networks if your requests fail with the cheaper ones. 

In June 2024, Nimble’s platform didn’t support top-up functionality, but there was an option to restart the billing cycle if you ran out of traffic. 

Overall, Nimble’s rates look very similar to its premium competitors, at least until 1 TB+ when custom deals kick in. However, when we compare it to mid-market providers like Smartproxy, the difference becomes more pronounced. 

Performance Benchmarks

We last tested Nimble’s residential proxies in March 2024, for the annual Proxy Market Research.

#1: Pool size & composition

GatewayParametersUnique IPsResidential %*
Global1.2M req, 21 days 290,89093.66%
US560k req, 14 days 84,91090.77%
UK560k req, 14 days 26,86889.31%
EU**1.2M req, 14 days 100,90593.98%
Brazil560k req, 14 days 7,51596.85%
India560k req, 14 days 29,92696.86%
Australia140k req, 7 days 4,53289.56% 

* IP2Location database, Usage type data point, ISP, ISP/MOB, MOB IPs.
** Combines Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands.

nimbleway residential global pool comparison march 2024 residential country pool comparison

Nimble’s proxy pool was decent but also among the smaller ones we’ve tested. Other premium providers like Oxylabs and NetNut had way more IPs – but to be fair, quantity was never Nimble’s focus.

In addition, the pool wasn’t very balanced. It included many IPs in tier 1 locations like the US and Europe, which is always welcome. However, the provider’s Brazil and Indian pools were significantly smaller than what we’d expect. 

#2: IP quality

We checked 20,000 proxies in the Global pool and 10,000 proxies in the US using the IPQualityScore database.

 Avg. fraud scoreProxy %Frequent abuser
Global36.8140.54%1,296
US58.1164.05%770
nimbleway residential global fraud score comparison nimbleway residential us fraud score comparison

The residential proxies weren’t abused much, and there were few IPs marked as constant abusers. The result is solid. 

#3: Infrastructure performance

This benchmark shared the same parameters as the pool test. Our scraper was located in Germany for the Global pool, and we also had scrapers in the US and Singapore for individual country pools. We targeted a global CDN – it pinged a server nearest to the proxy IP and had a response size of several kilobytes.

GatewayAvg. success rateAvg. response time
Random98.79%1.26 s
US97.18%0.70 s 
UK99.13%1.21 s
EU99.31%1.26 s
Brazil99.60%1.02 s
India99.09%2.69 s
Australia98.48%2.89 s
nimbleway resi success rate comparison march 2024 nimbleway resi response time comparison march 2024

Nimble performed decently, but we couldn’t quite replicate the provider’s promised 0.25 s response time and 99.9% success rate. Still, these are among the better proxies in terms of infrastructure performance. 

#4: Performance with popular targets

We made ~2,600 connection requests to each target using US-filtered proxies. Our computer was located in the US. Note that your results may differ based on your web scraping setup.

WebsiteAvg. success rateAvg. response time
Amazon94.41%3.43 s
Google96.79%2.13 s
Social Media96.88%3.46 s 
Total96.03%3.01 s

Nimble shone with popular websites, managing to achieve a very high success rate. We had the provider’s optimization engine enabled for the test. However, at our scale it didn’t seem to do much, at least when it came to Amazon: without optimizations, the success rate was effectively identical.

Either way, this is among the best results we’ve seen for this test. 

How to Use Nimble

This section goes through Nimble’s user experience, including the dashboard, setup procedure, and customer support.

Registration

To register with Nimble, you’ll have to enter your name, email, and company name. The provider will send you a verification email, after which you’ll need to generate a password. There’s also an option to use Google’s single sign-on. Following a successful registration, Nimble will automatically activate your trial for seven days. 

Note that the platform requires a company email to register – a Gmail address won’t do. 

Dashboard

Nimble provides a dashboard for interacting with its services. It lets you buy and upgrade a plan, set up products (and experiment with configurations in the playground), view usage reports and the network status. There’s also an area for managing team access to the account. 

The dashboard is well made overall. That said, it could use more localization options – for now, English is the only available display language.

nimbleway dash home
The dashboard's main page.

Subscription Management

Nimble supports self-service, but all changes to plans (such as upgrading) will have to made through an account manager. Invoices are sent automatically by email. The dashboard doesn’t include the wallet functionality, but we were told it exists for pay-as-you-go plans. 

Access Management

To manage access to its proxies and scrapers, Nimble uses something called Pipelines. These are like sub-users, with their own name, credentials, and configuration.

For example, we had one pipeline for US-filtered rotating residential proxies, a pipeline optimized for SERP scraping, and a pipeline for Amazon. The pipelines for all products appear in one place, and you can filter the list by name or status.

Nimble provides a widget for setting up individual pipelines. In the case of residential proxies, it allows choosing an optimization engine, rotation behavior, and location. You can also impose spend limits and set up a port range if you’ll be using IP whitelisting instead of credentials. 

Once a pipeline is set up, you can head to Nimble’s Playground to generate cURL samples based on the pipeline, target, and session ID if you’ll be using those. The tool is convenient, but it could benefit from more programming languages. 

Some functionality was unavailable in the dashboard and required using Nimble’s documentation, namely geo-sessions. However, the widget should be sufficient for most uses. 

nimbleway dash pipelines nimbleway dash pipeline usage nimbleway dash pipeline settings nimbleway dash playground

Usage Tracking

Nimble prides itself for its elaborate reporting tools. And indeed, they’re something to be proud of. You can find usage statistics all throughout the dashboard. 

The most visible place is the home page, which features general traffic/request expenditure, as well as more detailed reports. They allow filtering by product, pipeline, country, and domain and then generate neat graphs showing traffic expenditure, requests made, and success rate. It’s possible to select from various pre-set time periods or choose a custom date range. 

The second place is in a pipeline itself. It displays the same data points, only localized to that particular pipeline’s scope. 

Then, there’s the Analytics tab. It’s able to generate comparative reports based on time (e. g. current vs previous billing periods) or product (Pipeline 1 vs Pipeline 2). You can then download a CSV with the data if needed.

Finally, you can see the service’s uptime and outages using the network status page. 

All in all, Nimble’s reporting functionality is expansive and well made. But like all things, it’s not perfect. For some reason, it failed to show some domains we accessed, like Amazon. And adding additional data points could make it even better, such as error codes and response time.  

nimbleway dash stats home nimbleway dash analytics current past nimbleway dash analytics performance comparison nimbleway dash analytics custom reports

API Access

Nimble offers a feature-rich API for controlling access to its services programmatically. It allows:

  • managing authentication,
  • listing supported cities,
  • creating, modifying, and deleting pipelines, 
  • monitoring product use (There’s even an endpoint for getting the last 100 requests made using a pipeline.)

The API is documented thoroughly, with examples in JavaScript and cURL and an option to test individual functions. If there’s anything it lacks, that would be online IP stats and more subscription management options. But we shouldn’t let the perfect be the enemy of the great. 

nimbleway api
The API is rich with features.

Documentation

Nimble has a detailed documentation hub with quick-start guides, product reference, integration instructions, and FAQs. Select sections also include video instructions. Examples are given in multiple programming languages, namely cURL, Python, Node.js, and Go. 

The integration guides can be hard to find; but other than that, we can’t really fault this area. 

nimbleway documentation
Nimble's documentation hub.

Hands-On Support

Nimble provides support via multiple channels: live chat on the dashboard, email, Slack, Microsoft Teams, and Discord. We used the live chat, which is based on Zendesk and should be accessible 24/7. 

Our experience wasn’t great. The chat bot (of course there is one) had only one prompt that involved technical issues. We chose a product, received a bunch of article suggestions, and were asked whether we were happy. After answering no, the bot supposedly created a ticket (nothing actually happened) and then ignored any further replies. There was no way to talk with a human. 

If we chose not to follow the prompt and asked a simple question, the bot wasn’t able to give an answer. In brief, we found the live chat useless and frustrating. 

nimble live chat bot
Our two conversations with Nimble's live chat bot.

Conclusion

There’s a lot to like about Nimble. Its platform and data visualization tools work great, the platform pricing makes sense, and the proxy functionality brings fresh air to a market that had gotten a little stale. 

At the same time, we can still see rough edges behind the outward polish, some of the marketing claims fail to hold up to scrutiny, and the AI functionality we tried couldn’t fully convince us yet. 

But no one’s perfect, right? This is especially considering how new Nimble still is. Like we said at the beginning, the provider holds a lot of potential. And if you’re unwilling to wait until it fully unfolds, even now Nimble can be a strong tool in your web data collection belt. 

Nimble Alternatives

Oxylabs
Rating 9.3 / 10
★★★★★ 4.7/5

Oxylabs currently has one of the largest and best performing proxy networks out there. It’s a premium provider targeting customers with large needs.

View Website

Read the review

Bright Data
Rating 9.3 / 10
★★★★★ 4.7/5

Bright Data offers more features and powerful proxy management tools. It also uses the same platform-based pricing model.

View Website

Read the review

netnut-logo
Rating 9.0 / 10
★★★★★ 4.5/5

NetNut is another strong choice for enterprise use. It features a large proxy network in Tier 1 countries, together with very detailed reporting functionality.

View Website

Read the review

Recommended for:

Businesses looking for an innovative premium provider. 

Try Nimbleway
Rating 8.7 / 10
★★★★★ 4.4/5
Try Nimbleway
Picture of Adam Dubois
Adam Dubois
Proxy geek and developer.

The post Nimble Review appeared first on Proxyway.

]]> https://proxyway.com/reviews/nimbleway-review/feed 0 Infatica Review https://proxyway.com/reviews/infatica https://proxyway.com/reviews/infatica#respond Fri, 16 Jun 2023 12:05:42 +0000 https://stage-web2.proxyway.com/?post_type=reviews&p=10317 Infatica Review A solid residential proxy provider with a sense of ethics. Infatica offers advanced features to all clients and highly competitive pricing at scale. Rating 8.7 / 10 ★★★★★ 4.3/5 Visit Infatica Infatica is one of the mid-market proxy providers with enterprise aspirations, competing with companies like Bright Data, SOAX, and Smartproxy. We revisit […]

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]]>
white infatica logo

Infatica Review

A solid residential proxy provider with a sense of ethics.

Infatica offers advanced features to all clients and highly competitive pricing at scale.

Rating 8.7 / 10
★★★★★ 4.3/5
Visit Infatica

Infatica is one of the mid-market proxy providers with enterprise aspirations, competing with companies like Bright Data, SOAX, and Smartproxy. We revisit it in mid-2024 after first testing the company several years ago. Back then, it was already a decent service, but still very much in the making. What about now? Let’s find out!

The review will give you some context about Infatica as a company, its user experience, and proxy performance metrics based on weeks of testing.

News about Infatica

Infatica Launches Rotating Datacenter Proxies

Every plan gives access to 500,000 proxies “around the world”.
  • Provider News

Infatica Makes Its Residential Proxies Up to 50% Cheaper

The changes primarily impact lower-tier plans.
  • Provider News

Infatica Launches Dedicated Datacenter Proxies

The product covers nearly 50 locations in six continents.
  • Provider News
Read all news

General Information

CountryUK
Founded2019
Proxy networks

Datacenter (shared)
ISP (dedicated)
Residential
Mobile

Other services
General-purpose, Google, Amazon APIs
Supporting toolsProxy checker
Price rangeMid-market
Starting price$4
Payment methodsCredit card (Stripe), PayPal, Bitcoin, bank transfer
Trial3 days & 100 MB for $1.99

Infatica is a UK-based proxy provider established in early 2019. It initially sold premium residential proxies but has since expanded to all major proxy types and web scraping APIs. Despite having a HQ in the UK, Infatica’s owners and part of the staff are of Eastern European origin.

The provider’s main target seems to businesses: primarily small to medium, but Infatica is also willing to serve enterprise clients. Among the use cases, you’ll find the usual suspects like web scraping, ad verification, social media automation, and business intelligence.

As a business-oriented provider, Infatica tries hard to present itself as a legitimate service. Its approach is laid out in the provider’s ethical code that mentions GDPR compliance, activity monitoring, and IP sourcing practices.

Infatica is straightforward about how it gets and governs proxies. It injects an SDK into apps and borrows traffic from people who install them. In return, it saves them from ads or other monetization methods. Infatica once caught heat for putting the SDK into Chrome extensions, but things have been quiet since.

Some parts of the ethical code had to make way for business goals, with hilarious results. At the time of writing this, both sides of the screenshot below were live on Infatica’s website. We all know which prevailed.

infatica reselling policy
So can you or can you not resell?
All in all, Infatica is a standard mid-sized proxy server company. With a call for $2M investment in late 2022 (which was answered by the venture capital firm behind SOAX), Infatica looks ready to increase the pressure on its competitors.

Infatica Proxy Networks

Infatica sells four types of proxy servers:

  • Datacenter proxies in shared lists that are located primarily in the US.
  • ISP proxies in dedicated lists and over 15 countries to choose from. 
  • Residential proxies with flexible targeting options around the world.
  • Mobile proxies that borrow the network connections of phones and other end-user devices.

We cover individual proxy types in the expandable drop-downs below:

Residential proxies are Infatica’s highlight and main product. They give you full access to large network of IPs associated with residential devices.

Pool Size & Coverage

Advertised pool sizeLocationsTargeting options
15 millionGlobalGlobal, country, state, city, ASN, ZIP code

Infatica is relatively modest in its advertising claims: 15 million IPs area much less compared to Bright Data’s 72 or Oxylabs’ 100 million proxies.

In any case, they’re enough for global coverage – and even very precise targeting options like city or ASN.

Features

RotationTrafficConcurrencyOther
 Every request
5-60 mins
Manual
Plan basedUnlimited threads & ports–

Infatica’s residential proxies can rotate with every connection request or establish sticky sessions. The session length ranges between five and 60 minutes – you can specify it by choosing one of the provided intervals. Infatica also offers the ability to manually force the rotation of all the sessions you’ve created.

Traffic aside, the service is pretty much unlimited.

Integration & Use

Connection methodFormatSecondary formatProtocolsAuthentication
Gateway addressUSERNAME:PASSWORD@
IP:PORT:10000

USERNAME_c_US
_city_New-York
_asn_12271
_s_100:PASSWORD
@pool.infatica.io:10000

HTTP
SOCKS5		Credentials
IP whitelisting

Like most residential proxy networks, Infatica uses backconnect gateway servers for access.

You can connect to them in two ways:

  1. By generating lists. This way, you select the parameters and Infatica creates a namable list with one IP address, a custom username, and 1,000 ports. It’s possible to generate up to 20 lists per plan.
  2. By using the API tool. This is a more standard approach where you customize the pool by adding parameters to the username.


The second option seems easier to manage, as your choices transparently reflect in the credentials. At the same time, it still requires changing the port number for sticky sessions and may not support list-based traffic statistics.

Pricing Plans

ModelFormatModifiersStarting priceTrial
PAYG
Subscription		Pay per traffic–$4 for 1 GB3-day trial with 100 MB for $1.99

Infatica lets you use its proxy network without commitment, or you can subscribe to a plan – the cheapest starts from $96. Larger plans offer increasingly better rates, which you can further improve by 20% with a yearly contract.

Unfortunately, it’s not possible to top up a plan. When traffic runs out, the system will automatically renew the current plan if you’ve set up a payment method.

Compared to competitors, Infatica’s rates beat most enterprise providers and remain slightly more expensive compared to mid-market providers like Smartproxy. However, they tend to scale well past 500 GB of traffic.

Performance Benchmarks

We last tested Infatica’s residential proxies in March 2024, for the annual Proxy Market Research.

#1: Pool size & composition

GatewayParametersUnique IPsResidential %*
Global1.2M req, 21 days697,06392.44%
US560k req, 14 days162,20789.14%
UK560k req, 14 days92,14289.65%
EU** 1.2M req, 14 days240,05891.46%
Brazil560k req, 14 days224,97297.14%
India560k req, 14 days162,31996.90%
Australia 140k req, 7 days11,83282.72%

* IP2Location database, Usage type data point, ISP, ISP/MOB, MOB IPs.
** Combines Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands.

infatica residential pool comparison march 2024 residential country pool comparison

Infatica had a solid proxy pool in all our benchmarked locations. While it still can’t reach the level of NetNut or Oxylabs, the network has grown multiple times since our last test a year ago. In short, it should be large enough for most use cases.

One drawback was that IP2Location identified around every tenth IP as non-residential. This isn’t ideal compared to something like Bright Data whose proxy network is flawless in this regard.

#2: IP quality

We checked 20,000 proxies in the Global pool and 10,000 proxies in the US using the IPQualityScore database.

 Avg. fraud scoreProxy %Frequent abuser
Global55.2157.38%2,519
US89.0990.52%3,625
infatica residential global fraud score comparison march 2024 infatica residential us fraud score comparison march 2024

Infatica had serious issues with the IPQualityScore database – its results were some of the worst among all our tested providers. The situation was especially bad in the US, where the IPs had an average fraud score of 89/100.

On one hand, this score can indicate that Infatica’s service is popular. On the other hand, we can also interpret this as overextending or failing to handle abuse.

#3: Infrastructure performance

This benchmark shared the same parameters as the pool test. Our scraper was located in Germany for the Global pool, and we also had scrapers in the US and Singapore for individual country pools. We targeted a global CDN – it pinged a server nearest to the proxy IP and had a response size of several kilobytes.

GatewayAvg. success rateAvg. response time
Global97.12%0.99 s
US97.89%1.28 s
UK98.87%0.44 s
EU98.14%0.49 s
Brazil95.56%1.54 s
India95.03%1.99 s
Australia97.84%2.52 s
infatica residential success rate comparison march 2024 infatica residential response time comparison march 2024

Infatica’s infrastructure success rate was just okay, especially compared to providers like Oxylabs which barely ever failed. However, the proxies responded very quickly, with European locations being the highlight.

#4: Performance with popular targets

We made ~2,600 connection requests to each target using US-filtered proxies. Our computer was located in the US. Note that your results may differ based on your web scraping setup.

WebsiteAvg. success rateAvg. response time
Amazon94.56%3.97 s
Google92.73%2.54 s
Social Media96.00%5.62 s
Total94.43%4.04 s

The residential proxies did very well with all targets, showing that specialized tools like IPQualityScore don’t always predict success. Few competitors managed to beat this success rate in our limited-scale test.

Mobile proxies are Infatica’s premium product for the toughest targets or specialized use cases. This is a peer-to-peer network, meaning that it uses real mobile devices.

Usually, such services include only carrier IPs. But as Infatica warns us (and as we’ll soon see), it’s a mix of mobile and Wi-Fi networks:

infatica mobile proxy disclaimer
Infatica's disclaimer.

Pool Size & Coverage

Advertised pool sizeLocationsTargeting options
5 million100+Global, country, state, city, ASN

The advertised pool of 5 million IPs sounds modest, and so do the 100+ countries. But it’s good that Infatica isn’t trying to inflate numbers just for marketing’s sake.

In those locations, the provider supports even more precise targeting options, such as city and ASN targeting. We’re happy to see them, but it’s worrying whether the pool this size is able to realistically offer this level of granularity. We’ll see soon enough.

Features

RotationTrafficConcurrencyOther
 Every request
5-60 mins
Sticky sessions
Plan basedUnlimited–

Infatica offers generous targeting options: between the standard rotation with every request and sticky sessions, you can also choose custom intervals up to 60 minutes. Of course, there are no guarantees that the IP will really last this long.

The service doesn’t limited how many threads or parallel requests you can establish at once.

Integration & Use

Connection methodFormatSecondary formatProtocolsAuthentication
Gateway addressUSERNAME:PASSWORD@
IP:PORT:10000

USERNAME_c_US
_city_New-York
_asn_12271
_s_100:PASSWORD
@pool.infatica.io:10000

HTTP
SOCKS5		Credentials
IP whitelisting

Infatica gives you two integration formats to work with:

  1. The first creates a list with 1,000 ports, each representing a sticky session. Your filters reflect in an automatically generated username. Infatica allows creating and naming up to 20 lists per plan.
  2. The second, called API tool, lets you add parameters to the username. It’s more transparent, as the username isn’t random but rather reflects your choices. However, sticky sessions still require using different ports rather than session IDs.


Infatica supports SOCKS5, but we believe the protocol doesn’t allow UDP traffic at this time.

Pricing Plans

ModelFormatModifiersStarting priceTrial
PAYG, subscriptionPay per traffic–$8 for 1 GB3-day trial with 100 MB for $1.99

Infatica’s mobile proxy network can come with a subscription but doesn’t have to. Of course, committing gets you better rates and the ability to decrease them 20% further with a yearly plan.

If that sounds good, the cheapest package starts from $45 ($7.5/GB).

Compared to the competition, Infatica costs a similar amount to mid-market providers and a fair bit less compared to premium competitors like Bright Data. This is thanks to a significant price reduction made in the summer of 2024.

Performance Benchmarks

We last tested Infatica’s mobile proxies in March 2024.

#1: Pool size & composition

We ran 280,000 requests over 14 days using the unfiltered pool and country pools, and 140,000 connection requests over 7 days using the Australian pool. We enriched IP data with the IP2Location database.

GatewayParametersUnique IPsMobile %*
Global280k req, 14 days115,10881.69%
US280k req, 14 days14,80720.92%
UK280k req, 14 days6,69650.63%
EU**280k req, 14 days4,87132.31%
Brazil280k req, 14 days15240.79%
India280k req, 14 days160,86892.61%
Australia 140k req, 7 days58520.51%

* IP2Location database, Usage type data point, ISP/MOB, MOB IPs.
** Combines Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands.

infatica mobile pool comparison march 2024 mobile country pool comparison mobile country pool comparison filtered

Infatica’s Global pool looked pretty good on paper. But in reality, it consisted predominantly of Indian IPs. Furthermore, the majority of other proxies weren’t even mobile – just like Infatica warned us. All in all, we’re not really happy with what we got.

#2: Infrastructure performance

This benchmark shared the same parameters as the pool test. Our computer was located in Germany for the Global pool, and we also had computers in the US and Singapore for individual country pools. We targeted a global CDN – it pinged a server nearest to the proxy IP and had a response size of several kilobytes.

GatewayAvg. success rateAvg. response time
Global95.84%1.23 s
US97.88%1.21 s
UK99.31%0.39 s
EU98.54%0.56 s
Brazil98.94%1.80 s
India93.38%2.47 s
Australia98.90%2.47 s
infatica mobile success rate comparison march 2024 infatica mobile response time comparison march 2024

Infatica’s infrastructure performance looked decent, but we have to remember that these proxies aren’t exactly mobile. The Indian pool – the only one that was true to its claims – failed relatively often.

#3: Performance with popular targets

We made ~2,600 connection requests to each target using US-filtered proxies. Our computer was located in the US. Note that your results may differ based on your web scraping setup.

WebsiteAvg. success rateAvg. response time
Amazon94.77%3.81 s
Google88.44%2.34 s
Social Media95.56%4.56 s
Total92.92%3.57 s

The mobile proxy network performed very similar to Infatica’s residential proxies – that is to say, very well.

How to Use Infatica

This part covers Infatica’s dashboard, proxy setup procedure, and customer service.

Registration

To register with Infatica, you’ll have to complete a registration form. This involves entering a name and surname, country, email address, and password. You can optionally add your WhatsApp or Telegram acccount.

Alternatively, it’s possible to register using a Twitter of Facebook profile. Opting for social networks and not Google sounds strange considering that Infatica targets companies.

You won’t have to confirm your email address when signing up, but it’s necessary for buying a plan. The first purchase is tied up with identity verification, which requires sending an ID and selfie to a company called Veriff.

Dashboard

Infatica provides a dashboard for managing subscriptions and access to products. It’s a competent panel with the all necessary features but also not the most convenient one.

For example, each product gets a different tab. But instead of being a hub for that product, it only lets you buy a plan. Then, no matter what you bought, you have to visit the Services tab and reach your plan through there. This make sense but also confuses and wastes space. In a similar way, clicking on Infatica’s logo leads you to the website’s home page. Why?

However, these are minor annoyances. Infatica also made some good decisions. I like the dashboard’s access management system which allows giving permissioned controls to others, and you can set up two-factor authentication.

infatica dashboard main screen infatica dashboard residential tab infatica dashboard user management

Subscription Management

It’s possible to buy a plan using two methods. One is to pay directly. The second is to add money to Infatica’s wallet and then get a plan. The latter option allows paying with crypto and reduces the number of transactions needed if you add more funds in advance.

You can find all invoices on a separate page in the dashboard. They include payment status and transaction details.

infatica dashboard invoices infatica dashboard wallet page

Proxy Management

The proxy setup has its own quirks. To reach the right page, you need to go through the My Services tab and find your active plan. There, you’ll find a widget for proxy setup that generates endpoint:port lists based on your parameters.

The flow involves naming the list, choosing an authentication method, selecting a location pre-set or a custom location, specifying the rotation interval, and finally the output format. The system then generates a list of 1,000 endpoints that you can copy-paste to your software. It’s possible to create multiple lists this way.

Alternatively, Infatica provides an instructions page for its API tool.

infatica dashboard services tab infatica dashboard residential proxy setup infatica dashboard api tool

Usage Tracking

Infatica has two tools to track proxy usage. The first is a graph that shows how much traffic you’ve expended in total for the plan, and how much remains. The second graph shows your traffic expenditure throughout the day, week, or month.

You can also view traffic use for a particular proxy list. The option isn’t easy to find, but it’s there.

Currently, there’s no way to select a custom period or get any other metrics, such as success rate or request count. Providers like NetNut or Bright Data have Infatica beat in this regard.

infatica dashboard usage graph 1 infatica dashboard usage graph 2

Public API

Infatica provides a public API for interacting with the system programmatically. Currently, it’s able to retrieve information about traffic usage, active locations, and available ISPs.

infatica api documentation
Infatica's API reference.

Documentation

If you ever find yourself at a loss, the provider has a documentation hub to help you. It’s mostly concerned with walking through the purchase and setup flows of Infatica’s different products. Otherwise, the hub includes several integration guides and static code samples. The latter would fit better in the dashboard’s proxy setup page.

infatica documentation hub
The documentation hub.

Hands-On Support

On the other hand, Infatica’s live chat support works 24/7 and with an SLA-mandated response time of four hours. We had a fast and satisfactory experience with it. Alternatively, you can create a ticket for lengthier interactions.

Conclusion

Infatica leaves the impression of a competent business. It has the markings of a premium provider with responsive customer service, performant proxies, and ethical aspirations.

Though it managed to catch up on features with the market leaders, Infatica still has a hard time matching them in user experience or proxy network size. Looking at the trajectory, the provider is getting there.

All things considered, it’s hard for me to pinpoint something unique about Infatica, especially with companies like SOAX offering very similar services. But maybe there’s no need to? The promise of competitive prices and a different but similarly performant proxy pool may have enough appeal for quite a few businesses.

Infatica Alternatives

Oxylabs logo
Rating 9.3 / 10
★★★★★ 4.6/5

Oxylabs offers similar features with a larger proxy pool and better performance. Pay-as-you-go is another bonus, though the overall rates are higher. 

Visit Oxylabs

Read the review

Bright Data logo
Rating 9.3 / 10
★★★★★ 4.7/5

Bright Data is another strong option with a host of features and second-to-none proxy management tools. But once again – mind the price. 

Visit Bright Data

Read the review

black soax logo
Rating 9 / 10
★★★★★ 4.5/5

SOAX is the most similar provider to Infatica of the bunch. Same rotation and targeting options, very similar entry fee, strong overall performance. 

Visit SOAX

Read the review

Recommended for:

Budget-conscious companies looking for a competent premium proxy provider.

Try Infatica

Use the code proxyway2024 to get 20% off your first purchase.

infatica logo
Rating 8.7 / 10
★★★★★ 4.3/5
Try Infatica

Use the code proxyway2024 to get 20% off your first purchase.

Picture of Adam Dubois
Adam Dubois
Proxy geek and developer.

The post Infatica Review appeared first on Proxyway.

]]> https://proxyway.com/reviews/infatica/feed 0 Evomi Review https://proxyway.com/reviews/evomi-review https://proxyway.com/reviews/evomi-review#comments Wed, 28 Aug 2024 13:04:02 +0000 https://proxyway.com/?post_type=reviews&p=24994 Evomi Preview An impressive newcomer. Evomi’s performant proxy pools, polished brand image, and competitive prices make it a strong option for your next small to mid scale project. Rating 8.7 / 10 ★★★★★ 4.4/5 Visit Evomi Nowadays, there’s no shortage of proxy providers. But we’ll always find a place for companies with their own proxy […]

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]]>
evomi logo light

Evomi Preview

An impressive newcomer.

Evomi’s performant proxy pools, polished brand image, and competitive prices make it a strong option for your next small to mid scale project.

Rating 8.7 / 10
★★★★★ 4.4/5
Visit Evomi

Nowadays, there’s no shortage of proxy providers. But we’ll always find a place for companies with their own proxy network. And that’s exactly what Evomi claims to offer.

Couple this with some competent brand building (Swiss company, ethics, clear communication), and maybe we’re looking at a winner for individual and small business use? Or perhaps it’s all smoke and mirrors, especially considering how young the provider still is?

Let’s find out! We had a chance to benchmark all three of Evomi’s proxy networks. These are our impressions.

General Information

  • Country: Switzerland
  • Founded: 2024
  • Proxy networks: Datacenter, residential, mobile
  • Supporting tools: ❌
  • Price range: Lower mid-range
  • Starting price: $0.70
  • Payment methods: Credit card, PayPal (pay as you go only: Google Pay, wire transfer, cryptocurrency, local payments through PayPro)
  • Trial: Trial & money-back guarantee

Evomi is one of the newer companies in the market. It sells access to multiple proxy networks, with plans to launch web scraper APIs in the future. The provider is located in Switzerland, and its website makes sure that you’re well aware of this fact.

Despite being around for less than a year (at the time we were writing this review), Evomi has already done a lot of groundwork to present itself as a serious business. The website radiates solidity, there’s company information – even a phone number! – SLAs, and a page for ethical proxy sourcing practices. You can find most employees on LinkedIn. 

Evomi has also had the time to do some brand building: startups can apply to get free traffic using the provider’s Startup Program. In addition, Evomi is a member of the Ethical Web Data Collection Initiative, which advocates for responsible businesses practices in the industry.

As such, the company tries to be transparent about how it acquires proxies. A good part (even datacenter IPs) is sourced via Earn.fm, a bandwidth sharing application. The rest are likely resold. Having an in-house proxy network is a strong value proposition if the provider manages to flesh it out well.

While Evomi itself is new, the people behind it have been around for a while. They claim to have been selling proxies for more than six years. Specifically, we found links to InfiniteProxies, which was established in 2019. After bringing this up, we were told that the projects may have been but were no longer related.

All in all, Evomi creates the impression of a solid company, even if some efforts (like the AI-generated image of an idyllic looking Swiss landscape) go a tad too far.

News about Evomi

Evomi Adds New Filters to Residential Proxies

Latency, fraud score, device, and more parameters are now available – for a price.
  • Provider News

Evomi Launches Core Residential Proxies

At $.49/GB, these may be the cheapest residential proxies out there.
  • Provider News

New Review: Evomi

Evomi joins the ranks of our reviewed providers.
  • Provider News
Read all news

Evomi Proxy Networks

Evomi sells access to three proxy networks: datacenter, residential, and mobile. Each gives you access to a large pool of IPs with rotation and traffic-based pricing.

  • Datacenter proxies are Evomi’s entry-level product for targets that are less likely to block based on IP reputation.
  • Residential proxies are best suited for protected websites behind Cloudflare, DataDome, and other anti-bot systems.
  • Mobile proxies can be used with mobile-first websites, apps, or targets with the strictest protection. 
evomi proxy types
Evomi's proxy networks.

Pool Size & Coverage

Over 100 countries for all proxy types.

 DatacenterResidentialMobile
Advertised pool sizeNot specifiedNot specifiedNot specified
Locations100+150+150+
TargetingRandom, continent, countryRandom, continent, country, state, city, ASNRandom, country, state, ASN

Evomi doesn’t really mention how many proxies it controls. You could try to gauge the numbers by visiting the website’s location pages: for example, the one for US proxies advertises nearly 10 million IPs. But this isn’t really convenient, and from our experience, such pages are rarely updated.

All three products have broad location coverage, especially the datacenter proxy network. However, these proxies too are likely sourced through Evomi’s bandwidth sharing app, so their availability is hard to predict. As a result, the datacenter IPs are best suited for web scraping and similar tasks.

The location filtering options depend on the product. In any case, they’re more or less in line with industry standards. Maybe only city-level targeting is missing from the mobile network. 

Features

Unconventional pool filters for residential proxies.

  • Rotation: Every request, 1-120 mins, long sessions
  • Traffic: Plan based
  • Concurrency: Unlimited threads & ports
  • Other (residential only): Ad blocking, pool modes

Evomi’s proxies rotate by default. The interval can be every connection request, which is convenient for web scraping. Or, you can create a session with an option to specify its lifetime between one and 120 minutes. The provider also offers an option to establish a hard session, which holds onto the same IP for as long as it remains online.

The number of ports and threads isn’t limited, so you can scrape to your heart’s content.

Evomi’s residential proxies offer several additional options. For one, you can choose to block ads, which should save traffic. There are also pool modes to optimize the proxies for speed or quality.

evomi residential pool modes
The residential proxy pool modes.

Such features aren’t encountered often, though lately more providers have been adding additional ways to interact with their proxy networks.

Integration & Use

Limited SOCKS5, only username:password authentication.

  • Connection method: Gateway address
  • Format: USERNAME:PASSWORD_country-US_session-ID_lifetime-36@dcp.evomi.com:2000
  • Protocols: HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS5
  • Authentication: Credentials

All three proxy networks give you a backconnect gateway address that connects you to the proxy pool. The address itself doesn’t change, while filters and sticky sessions are added to the password. The port number generally remains the same as well – the only time you have to modify it is when you choose a different connection protocol.

Speaking of protocols, Evomi supports all three: HTTP, HTTPS, and SOCKS5. The latter accepts only TCP traffic at this time.

If your software doesn’t have username and password authentication, you’ll be out of luck: IP whitelisting isn’t available. There are ways around this – but they require jumping through extra hoops, which we’d prefer to avoid.

Pricing Plans

Pay-as-you-go available.

 DatacenterResidentialMobile
ModelPay as you go, subscription
FormatPay per traffic
Modifiers–
Starting price$0.7 for 1 GB$4 for 1 GB$4 for 1 GB
TrialAvailable

Evomi charges for traffic use. You can buy some using a one-off payment or subscribe for better rates. The difference is small at first but increases significantly with scale.

Following the recent trend, the residential and mobile proxies cost the same. Evomi’s datacenter product, on the other hand, is up to ten times cheaper per gigabyte.

Compared to others, Evomi’s residential proxies cost below most mid-market alternatives like Smartproxy and SOAX. The mobile plans are especially affordable throughout the pricing range.

If, for some reason, you find the proxies insufficient for your needs, Evomi has a money-back guarantee. It applies if you’ve used less than 1 GB or 10% of your plan’s allowance.

Performance Benchmarks

Decently sized and impressively performant proxy networks.

We last tested Evomi’s residential proxies in October 2024.

#1: Pool size & composition

  • Requests: Global pool – 1.2M, 21 days; country pools – 560k, 14 days; Australia – 140k, 7 days 
  • Residential percentage: IP2Location database, Usage type data point (ISP, ISP/MOB, MOB IPs)

 

GatewayUnique IPsResidential %
Global685,42397.31%
US305,72299.39%
UK197,96997.43% 
EU*323,16195.32% 
Brazil277,57997.05% 
India125,73294.98% 
Australia22,23994.86% 

* Combines Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands.

evomi resi pool comparison residential country pool comparison

Evomi had a respectable number of residential IPs in all our tested locations, managing to beat a number of more established providers. Furthermore, most of them were indeed from residential internet service providers.

#2: Infrastructure performance

  • Parameters: Same as the pool test
  • Target: Nearest server of a global CDN (<10 KB)
  • Our server locations: DE for Global & European pools, US for American & Brazil pools, Singapore for Indian & Australian pools

 

GatewayAvg. success rateAvg. response time
Global98.74%1.10 s
US99.13%0.92 s
UK99.78%0.60 s
EU98.97%0.71 s
Brazil99.54%1.43 s
India99.24%2.29 s
Australia99.53%2.44 s
evomi resi success rate comparison evomi resi response time comparison

Evomi’s residential infrastructure performed well: it was on the higher end both in terms of success rate and response time. This is taking into account the partial outage that affected the network for several days – without it, the results would be even better. 

We last tested Evomi’s mobile proxies in October 2024.

#1: Pool size & composition

  • Requests: 280k, 14 days; Australia – 140k, 7 days 
  • Mobile percentage: IP2Location database, Usage type data point (ISP/MOB, MOB IPs)

 

GatewayUnique IPsMobile %
Global116,38982.67%
US29,56269.27%
UK33,27068.46%
EU*20,79686.36%
Brazil2,83990.56%
India14,29598.49%
Australia1,51492.80%

* Combines Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands.

Evomi mobile pool comparison mobile country pool comparison unfiltered mobile country pool comparison filtered

Though not the largest, Evomi’s mobile network should be enough for some serious web scraping. However, you may not have a great experience when applying precise filters (such as city or ASN). What’s more, IP2Location identified around a third of US and UK IPs as belonging to landline or other non-mobile networks. 

#2: Infrastructure performance

  • Parameters: Same as the pool test
  • Target: Nearest server of a global CDN (<10 KB)
  • Our server locations: DE for Global & European pools, US for American & Brazil pools, Singapore for Indian & Australian pools

 

GatewayAvg. success rateAvg. response time
Global98.63%0.97 s
US99.91%0.50 s
UK99.95%0.48 s
EU99.96%0.46 s
Brazil99.98%0.63 s
India99.87%1.79 s
Australia99.89%1.78 s
evomi mobile success rate comparison evomi mobile response time comparison

Infrastructure performance is an area where Evomi’s mobile proxies really excelled. They had the fewest errors and among the fastest response times out of all the providers we had tested. In fact, these proxies often performed even better than Evomi’s residential network. Color us impressed. 

We last tested Evomi’s datacenter proxies in October 2024.

#1: Infrastructure performance (rotating proxies)

  • Requests: 70,000
  • Proxy location: US
  • Target: Nearest server of a global CDN (<10 KB)
  • Our computer’s location: US

 

Unique IPsAvg. success rate
Avg. response time
16,50799.51%0.56 s

We found over 16,000 IPs in the US, which is a lot for datacenter proxies. They worked well the majority of the time, failing only once in a while. The response time was also respectable, though some competitors (most notably – Bright Data) were up to twice faster in our tests.

#2: Download speed

  • IPs tested: 10
  • Proxy location: US
  • Target: Hetzner’s 100MB Ashburn benchmark
  • Our computer’s location: US
 
Avg. without proxiesAvg. download speedSlowest IP
146.50 MB/s3.19 MB/s0.012 MB/s

Evomi’s datacenter proxies had very low throughput, and the slowest tested IPs would be barely usable in a real world setting. As such, we can’t recommend them for traffic-intensive tasks like streaming. 

How to Use Evomi

This section covers Evomi’s dashboard, proxy setup procedure, and customer service.

Registration

To register, you’ll need to enter your full name, email address, and password. Alternatively, there’s an option to sign up with a Google login.

While Evomi doesn’t ask for KYC information during registration, you may still have to complete the KYC procedure later on. This depends on whether Evomi notices suspicious behavior. The verifier is Stripe – it will ask for a photo ID and selfie.

Dashboard

Evomi has a dashboard for managing subscription, interacting with its products, tracking usage, and getting help.

The dashboard is clean, well-designed, and available in four languages: English, Russian, Chinese, and German.

We have few gripes about it. Well, maybe the main page could be more useful – now, it only serves to sell products, whether you have them already or not.

evomi dashboard home
The dashboard's home page.

Evomi’s dashboard lets you add payment information (card or PayPal), manage subscriptions, and download automatically generated invoices from Stripe. Subscriptions renew automatically, and it’s possible to buy extra traffic at the plan’s rate.

There seems to be no wallet functionality at the time, which unfortunately means that each action will require making a new transaction.

evomi dash billing information evomi dashboard plan billing evomi dashboard subscription evomi dashboard invoices

There’s a proxy generator widget. It lets you choose various configurations (protocol, filtering and rotation parameters, a pool mode), and then spits out a list of entry points in several formats. The widget is simple to work with.

Having said that, you can’t really change a username by yourself or even pick a custom password – the system generates it upon request. Regular customers also don’t get access to sub-users, which complicates work with proxies in a team setting.

evomi dashboard proxy setup
The proxy generator widget.

Evomi’s usage statistics are separated by product. You get two graphs – one for traffic, the second for requests made – which can be filtered for today, last 3, 7, 14, or 30 days. There’s also a table for statistics by domain, though it only shows aggregated requests made in the last 12 hours.

All in all, Evomi’s usage information is basic but competent. It may not always be fast to load, but that’s because the data is fetched live.

For more general information, the provider has a network status page that shows uptime statistics and outages for the last 180 days.

evomi dashboard usage stats evomi network status

API Access

Evomi has a management API, but it’s only available to resellers that buy at least 5 TB of data.

Documentation

Evomi has a documentation hub with information about each product and an FAQ to answer the main questions surrounding the service. Both are decently fleshed out.

At the end of October 2024, the integration instructions covered major operating systems and web scraping libraries. However, if wanted to pair the proxies with an antidetect browser or another third-party tool, you’d have to look elsewhere.

evomi documentation hub evomi faq

Hands-On Support

Evomi’s customer support works 24/7, with the main channel being live chat. Powered by Intercom, the chat also has ticketing functionality, though it’s not obvious at first sight.

Large customers get more options: a dedicated account manager available through phone and assistance via Slack.

We tested the live chat during daytime in Europe. The agent responded within a few minutes and gave competent responses to the questions we had. While limited, this interaction left us satisfied with the service.

evomi customer support live chat evomi customer service main window

Conclusion

That was our detailed evaluation of Evomi. Overall, the provider’s polished brand image, competitive prices, and solid proxy network performance left us with a very positive impression, especially compared to the many transient resellers out there.

At this point, Evomi still lacks the scale and features for enterprise use. However, it’s perfectly capable of powering many other tasks. This applies even more so if you’re looking to upgrade from entry-level providers like PacketStream, or if you need an alternative to mid-market vendors like SOAX or Rayobyte.

Evomi Alternatives

black soax logo
Rating 9.0 / 10
★★★★★ 4.5/5

SOAX’s pricing is less flexible. But you’ll get more proxies and way more control over how they work. 

Visit SOAX

Read the review

smartproxy-logo
Rating 9.3 / 10
★★★★★ 4.7/5

Smartproxy is the mid-market choice to beat. Once again, for slightly more money, you’ll get more IPs and even better performance.

Visit Smartproxy

Read the review

dataimpulse logo
Rating 8.3 / 10
★★★★★ 4.2/5

Dataimpulse offers the same three proxy networks with extremely affordable rates and non-expiring traffic.

Visit Dataimpulse

Read the review

Recommended for:

Individuals or small to medium businesses looking for rotating proxies.

Visit Evomi
evomi logo dark
Rating 8.7 / 10
★★★★★ 4.4/5
Visit Evomi
Picture of Adam Dubois
Adam Dubois
Proxy geek and developer.

The post Evomi Review appeared first on Proxyway.

]]> https://proxyway.com/reviews/evomi-review/feed 3 Massive Review https://proxyway.com/reviews/massive-proxies https://proxyway.com/reviews/massive-proxies#respond Wed, 15 Jan 2025 09:08:50 +0000 https://proxyway.com/?post_type=reviews&p=30115 Massive Review Merely big for now, but still packing a punch. Massive covers the basics well, has many residential IPs in the US and Europe, and a robust infrastructure to keep things running. Rating 8.7 / 10 ★★★★★ 4.4/5 Visit Massive Massive isn’t a new company by any means, but it only seriously entered the […]

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]]>
massive logo dark

Massive Review

Merely big for now, but still packing a punch.

Massive covers the basics well, has many residential IPs in the US and Europe, and a robust infrastructure to keep things running.

Rating 8.7 / 10
★★★★★ 4.4/5
Visit Massive

Massive isn’t a new company by any means, but it only seriously entered the proxy server market in 2024. US-based, well financed, and ambitious, the provider tries to prove that these are the residential proxies you should choose for your project.

Is the service any good? And more importantly – is it better than what you can get for a comparable price, considering that the plans here start from >$200? Let’s find out!

General Information

  • Country: US
  • Founded: 2018
  • Proxy networks: ISP, residential
  • Supporting tools: ❌
  • Price range: Mid-market
  • Starting price: $225
  • Payment methods: Credit card, US bank account, Cash App (Stripe)
  • Trial: Available

Massive is a US company founded in 2018 by Jason Grad and Brian Kennish. Its main aim was – and still is – to build a computer resource sharing platform. To that end, Massive has raised over $12M in venture capital, mostly in late 2021.

The platform’s uses have changed over the years: it was primarily used for crypto mining during the hype, and now the focus is on downloading small amounts of data from the web – in other words, proxying traffic.

The vehicle for this is Massive’s SDK, which developers can add to their software as a monetization method. It’s a standard way to source residential IPs, but Massive stands out by being very upfront about what it does. There’s even a (bit dated) article on TechCrunch covering the business model.

In other words, Massive could be considered one of the more transparent residential proxy providers, at least as far as IP sourcing SDKs go. That said, the FAQ page still lacks any example apps despite promising them over a year ago. There’s always room for improvement, we suppose.

Massive started truly productizing its proxy network in mid-2024. In that sense, the provider is still new to the market. This is evident when looking at the website, which mashes together the proxy service, SDK, and even crypto mining, leading to an experience that’s not always coherent.

For the time being, it seems like Massive will focus on establishing itself as a web data infrastructure provider. Besides the main product – residential proxy network – the company is also testing the waters with ISP proxies, and there are traces of a search engine API in the documentation.

Currently, Massive’s weakest side is probably marketing. But if it perseveres, the company has the building blocks to become a force in the industry.

News about Massive

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Massive Residential Proxies

Below is a summary of Massive’s residential proxy network. The other tabs provide detailed information about various aspects of the service.

  • Massive’s residential proxy network is average in size, covers most countries around the world (focusing on the US & Europe), and offers precise targeting options: up to the city, ZIP code, and even device level, but no ASN.
  • There are few limitations other than traffic, and the provider supports flexible rotation settings. On the other hand, you won’t get UDP access or IP whitelisting functionality.
  • The rates are in line with other mid-market alternatives, but Massive’s plans lack flexibility and start from hundreds of dollars.
  • The infrastructure works very well, with a success rate of over 99.8% and a response time of less than 1 second.
  • Advertised pool size: 1 million
  • Locations: 195+ countries
  • Targeting options: Random, country, state, city, ZIP code, device

Massive is modest in advertising its proxy network, which may lead to misleading conclusions if you take marketing claims at face value. For example, SOAX boasts 155 million residential proxies, or 155 times more.

If you dig through Massive’s documentation, you’ll find much more useful numbers: 600k daily active and 300k concurrent IPs. This translates to way more than a million proxies per month.

The network covers most countries around the world. You get precise filtering options, with only ASN targeting missing. To compensate, the provider allows targeting specific devices: computers and laptops, phones, and even TVs. This feature isn’t something we encounter often. 

Massive’s pool size & composition (January 2025)

GatewayRequestsUnique IPsResidential %*
Global1.2M over 21 days580,74597.77%
US560k over 14 days231,15199.12%
UK560k over 14 days155,52899.27%
EU1.2M over 14 days322,79598.85%
Brazil560k over 14 days151,40596.56%
India560k over 14 days90,17798.30%
Australia140k over 7 days14,37099.26%

* IP2Location database, Usage type data point (ISP, ISP/MOB, MOB IPs)

Comparison with other providers

massiv residential country pool comparison

Our benchmarks reveal that Massive stands somewhere in the middle of the pack. The network included many IPs in desirable locations like the US and Europe, and relatively few in India.

We found it interesting that the global pool had few to no proxies in Japan, China, or Korea, but we didn’t check the individual endpoints to verify if the same applied to them.

The pool was indeed residential, with very few IPs belonging to other usage types (such as commercial, educational institutions, or data centers).

  • Rotation: Every request, 1-60 mins
  • Traffic: Plan based
  • Concurrency: Unlimited threads & ports
  • Connection method: Gateway address
  • Protocols: HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS5
  • Authentication: Credentials
  • Format: USERNAME-country-US-subdivision-CA-city-San%20Francisco-device-common-session-350260-sessionttl-60:[email protected]:65534

You access Massive’s residential proxies through a backconnect gateway server. It’s possible to filter the pool and establish sessions by modifying the username. Whitelisted IP authentication isn’t supported.

The proxies rotate with every connection request by default. A sticky session maintains the same IP for up to 15 minutes, or you can specify any interval between 1 and 60 minutes. An IP changes once a request fails (or if you reach the request limit for that node), but Massive has a parameter to override this behavior.

You can connect to Massive using HTTP, HTTPS if your company imposes strict security requirements, and there’s SOCKS5. The latter option only accepts TCP traffic for now. As such, all ports other than 80 and 443 are blocked.

It’s also interesting that Massive blocks any content it deems “not family friendly”. There’s no list or even examples given. We tried opening Pornhub (for science, of course) and, lo and behold – the provider’s custom Disallowed Content error appeared.

  • Model: Subscription
  • Format: Traffic
  • Modifiers: –
  • Starting price: $225 for 30 GB ($7.5/GB)
  • Trial: 100 MB or 2 GB for 3 days, 3-day refund

Massive uses a subscription-based pricing model for its residential proxies. A plan lasts for a month, with an option to renew it automatically. We didn’t find how to top up traffic without resubscribing to the full plan. 

Compared to practically all competitors, even premium services like Bright Data and Oxylabs, Massive has a very steep entry price. In addition, there’s no possibility to pay as you go. To compensate, the provider offers two trial options; the better one requires talking to a partnership manager (or a data nerd in Massive’s parlance).

How do the rates fare against other providers? Pound for pound, Massive comes out cheaper than most premium proxy vendors and rather compares with mid-market options like Smartproxy or IPRoyal.

Massive’s infrastructure performance (January 2025)

  • Target: Nearest server of a global CDN (<10 KB page size)
  • Our server locations: DE for Global & European pools, US for American & Brazil pools, Singapore for Indian & Australian pools

GatewayRequests
Avg. success rateAvg. response time
Global1.2M over 21 days99.84%0.78 s
US560k over 14 days99.42%0.77 s
UK560k over 14 days99.89%0.56 s
EU1.2M over 14 days99.82%0.57 s
Brazil560k over 14 days99.41%1.08 s
India560k over 14 days99.77%0.95 s
Australia140k over 7 days99.54%1.08 s

Comparison with other providers

massive residential proxy success rate comparison massive residential proxy response time comparison

We’d be hard pressed to say anything negative about Massive’s residential proxy infrastructure. We were able to establish a connection the majority of the time, and the proxies responded fast. We experienced some issues with the US proxies the first few days; but even accounting for them, the average success rate remained over 99%.

How to Use Massive

This section covers Massive’s dashboard, proxy setup procedure, and customer service.

Registration

The registration procedure is simple but also deceptively intimidating. Why? The first step involves choosing a subscription plan. This may put off some users, even if they notice the colorful heading stating that a trial is available with no upfront cost.

But once you get past this step, all you’ll need to do is enter a full name, email address, and password. After an email confirmation, Massive will let you into the dashboard and automatically activate the 100 MB trial.

As far as we know, no KYC process is required. However, the provider maintains a large list of restricted domains that’s not available publicly. Enabling any of the targets in the list will require identity verification.

What’s strange is that Massive doesn’t insist on entering payment details or even locking you into the chosen plan during the trial period. Sure, the dashboard will show a box asking to complete the purchase. But once you click on it, you’ll be able to choose from any of Massive’s plans. Why bother, then?

Dashboard

Massive has a dashboard for managing subscriptions, interacting with its products, tracking usage, and getting help.

The dashboard is simple and easy to understand. In early 2025, it focused completely on the residential proxy network, with no traces of Massive’s ISP proxy product.

The simplicity is great, but it also misses some important features. For one, the only available display language is English. In addition, there’s no two-factor authentication, which has become an industry standard by now, and no way to share access with other users. Finally, the dashboard is missing settings for managing usage alerts.

massive dashboard main page massive dashboard settings

The subscription management tools here are spread throughout several pages. The dashboard’s main page shows how much time the plan has remaining. The Profile page lets you add billing details. And the Invoices page does exactly what its name suggests.

Massive’s dashboard lacks wallet functionality, so any update to the subscription will require a separate transaction.

massive dash plans massive dash invoices massive dash billing details

The provider offers a proxy setup widget that lies in a tab called Quickstart. It lets you choose the connection protocol, rotation type, location filters, and proxy device. It then generates a cURL code snippet.

Massive creates the proxy username and password automatically. You can generate (not enter) a new password in the Profile page, while the username can’t be modified. We’re also not sure how sub-users work in the current dashboard setup.

There’s more room for improvement. We’d love to see code examples for more languages, and the widget is sorely missing a proxy list generator for use with sticky sessions. Right now, you have to add session parameters by hand.

masive dash proxy setup widget
The proxy setup widget.

Massive’s dashboard provides detailed usage statistics powered by Metabase. You get a number of data points to work with, such as requests made, success rate, traffic spent, and associated costs.

The Detailed Analysis tab allows segmenting the data by location and/or domain and adds further data points, namely error codes. The third view, Account Stats, shows all of the above segmented by sub-user.

You can freely choose a time frame, whether it’s last minute, week, or quarter. The caveat is that the current day is always taken as the point of reference (previous week, 30 days, etc.) All the views can be exported in multiple formats, including CSV & JSON.

The country data takes forever to load, but overall, Massive has done a great job with usage tracking. If there’s anything missing, that would be the network status.

massive dash usage overview massive dash usage details statistics massive dash usage account stats

API Access

Massive offers a management API for resellers. To get a token, you’ll need to contact support. The API’s functionality includes creating and updating accounts, allocating traffic, and receiving usage information.

In addition, Massive has a reporting API available to all users. It’s somewhat convoluted, as you basically have to interact wit a third party (Metabase), with its own credentials and conventions. Still, this is much better than no API access at all.

massive reseller api massive reporting api

Documentation

Massive has a documentation hub that covers the ins and outs of the residential proxy network: geo-targeting, sessions, and so on. It also includes a quickstart guide and several integration instructions with popular web scraping libraries.

In addition, the documentation links to a knowledge base, which is supposed to answer billing-related and other general queries. In reality, it was probably made for Massive’s AI chatbot (which we’ll cover in a sec).

massive docs massive knowledge base repeating articles

Hands-On Support

So, how is Massive’s support? There are three ways to get help: through a chatbot, email, or the ticketing system.

The chatbot is mostly what you’d expect it to be. Maria is able to answer a range of questions, so long as the data is available in its knowledge base. So for example, we were able to learn about the size of the proxy pool or how to contact human support.

However, Maria wasn’t able to tell us the support’s working hours, how to integrate the proxies with Multilogin, or what the pool size in Morocco is. On the bright side, the knowledge base can always be expanded, and Maria didn’t try to hallucinate its way through topics it wasn’t trained on.

The ticketing system was designed for bug reports and getting access to blocked domains. It asks what went wrong and which software you used. When we tried this avenue, a response came in around an hour during daytime in Europe. The answer was curt but helpful.

Email, then, is for everything else. Or maybe nothing: after a day of waiting for a reply, we just shrugged and moved on. Massive told us there had been a bug in their email configuration and that they usually reply (significantly faster).

massive support live chat 1 massive support chatbot 2

Conclusion

Massive has a lot to work with: a decently large – and self-sourced – residential proxy pool, strong infrastructure performance, and competent management tools.

At the same time, some aspects of the service are still underdeveloped, and the provider loses out in terms of variety compared to the market leaders.

Overall, Massive is a good choice for residential proxies with the potential to become great.

Massive Alternatives

black soax logo
Rating 9.0 / 10
★★★★★ 4.5/5

SOAX offers similar features and rates. You lose out on device targeting but get to filter by ASN, and there are more proxy types to choose from.

Visit SOAX

Read the review

smartproxy-logo
Rating 9.3 / 10
★★★★★ 4.7/5

Smartproxy is the provider to beat in the mid-market segment where Massive currently stands. It has a significantly bigger pool and more flexible prices.

Visit Smartproxy

Read the review

dataimpulse logo
Rating 8.3 / 10
★★★★★ 4.2/5

Dataimpulse can be a good option if you find Massive too expensive – the provider also sources proxies in-house and offers similar functionality.

Visit Dataimpulse

Read the review

Recommended for:

Businesses looking for a competent residential proxy network.

Visit Massive
massive logo dark
Rating 8.7 / 10
★★★★★ 4.4/5
Visit Massive
Picture of Chris Becker
Chris Becker
Proxy reviewer and tester.

The post Massive Review appeared first on Proxyway.

]]> https://proxyway.com/reviews/massive-proxies/feed 0 Proxy-Seller Review https://proxyway.com/reviews/proxy-seller-proxies https://proxyway.com/reviews/proxy-seller-proxies#respond Mon, 19 Feb 2024 08:18:25 +0000 https://stage-web2.proxyway.com/?post_type=reviews&p=18213 Proxy-Seller Review Affordable proxies for customers of all sizes. Proxy-Seller offers a lot of variety and the option to get as few as 1 IP for an attractive price.  Rating 8.5 / 10 ★★★★★ 4.3/5 Use the coupon PROXYWAY to get 15% off for any purchase. Try Proxy-Seller Proxy-Seller is known as one of the […]

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proxyseller logo

Proxy-Seller Review

Affordable proxies for customers of all sizes.

Proxy-Seller offers a lot of variety and the option to get as few as 1 IP for an attractive price. 

Rating 8.5 / 10
★★★★★ 4.3/5

Use the coupon PROXYWAY to get 15% off for any purchase.

Try Proxy-Seller

Proxy-Seller is known as one of the bigger providers of datacenter proxies (at least in the Eastern European region). Nowadays, it offers all proxy types (including residential IPs) that are accessible to individual users but can also cater to large businesses. 

In this review, we’ll take a look at the provider’s proxy networks and see how they compare with the market leaders. Let’s go!

General Information

CountryCyprus 
Founded2014
Proxy networks Datacenter (dedicated, IPv6)
ISP (dedicated)
Residential
Mobile (pay per device)
Web scrapers– 
Other toolsProxy checker 
Do-it-yourself mobile proxies
Price rangeMid-range 
Starting price$1 
Payment methodsCredit card, PayPal, cryptocurrencies 
Trial Available for all products

Proxy-Seller is a Cyprus-based business established in 2014. At the moment, it offers access only to proxy networks. Proxy-Seller can even help you create your own proxy infrastructure by selling mobile dongle kits and the software to make them work. 

The provider started off targeting the Eastern European region, which should still be a major focus. But it has since expanded into other markets and can be considered a globally-oriented company.

Proxy-Seller targets a broad audience. Its marketing material (such as pages for video games or survey websites) and a low entry barrier suggest a leaning toward individuals. However, the pricing plans scale to enterprise levels of use.

The provider has a lively presence on social media, communities like Blackhatworld, and a frequently updated YouTube channel. LinkedIn indicates a headcount between 50 and 200 people – likely inflated, but still at a level of a serious provider.  

Overall, Proxy-Seller is no spring chicken. I’m not sure how truthful the advertised number of 500,000 customers is, but I wouldn’t be too surprised if that really was the case. 

Proxy-Seller Proxy Networks

Proxy-Seller offers four kinds of proxy servers:

  1. Dedicated datacenter proxies, which are Proxy-Seller’s main product. They come from around 50 locations across five continents and impose very few limitation on how you can use them. 
  2. ISP (static residential) proxies that strongly resemble Proxy-Seller’s datacenter product. The main differences are fewer locations and a higher price in exchange for better effectiveness.
  3. Residential proxies – a recent addition to Proxy-Seller’s line-up. We don’t know where they come from or if they’re sourced in-house, leading us to assume that the product is resold. 
  4. Mobile proxies – shared or dedicated devices with SIM cards inside them. These proxies aren’t peer-to-peer, and you pay for a device, so they’re best suited for tasks that don’t require many connections at once.
proxy seller's proxy networks

I had the chance to review all four products, with the exception of IPv6 datacenter proxies, which I don’t consider a serious option for now. You can read their detailed descriptions by expanding the sections below. 

Coverage

CountriesTargetingDistribution
Over 50 in five continentsCountry (self-service),
city (upon request)		One per plan or mixed packages (world, Europe, Asia, etc.)

Proxy-Seller’s datacenter proxies cover a wide range of locations for this proxy type. It’s possible to get IPs in five continents, with the largest variety being in Europe. 

A plan lets you buy IPs in one country. However, you can also choose from one of the mixed packages. For example, Worldwide Mix 1 includes 25% proxies in the US, with the remaining 75% spread throughout all other available countries.

There are at least 10 mixed packages in total, all with different distributions. At this point, it probably would be better to simply let us specify where and how many proxies we need. 

AmericasEuropeAsiaAfricaOceania
US,
Canada,
Mexico,
Brazil		Belarus,
Belgium,
Bulgaria,
Cyprus,
Czech,
Denmark,
England,
Finland,
France,
Germany,
Greece,
Hungary,
Ireland,
Italy,
Latvia,
Lithuania,
Malta,
Netherlands,
Norway,
Poland,
Portugal,
Romania,
Russia,
Serbia,
Spain,
Sweden,
Switzerland,
Ukraine		Armenia,
Bangladesh,
Cambodia,
China,
Georgia,
India,
Indonesia,
Israel,
Japan,
Kazakhstan,
Malaysia,
Singapore,
South Korea,
Taiwan,
Thailand,
Turkey,
UAE,
Vietnam		Nigeria,
South Africa		Australia

Features

RotationTrafficConcurrencyProtocolsOther
Static, every requestUp to unlimited500 to thousands of threadsHTTP
SOCKS5		Network priority, custom refresh duration 

 

These datacenter proxies are pretty much unlimited: they meter neither traffic nor parallel connections. Having said that, Proxy-Seller recommends using no more than three threads per IP, which is low for this proxy type. 

You can use multiple connection protocols, and the provider offers an option to replace some or all IPs every month. The proxy list is static – this is expected, though providers like Webshare and Bright Data can offer optional rotation functionality. 

Integration & Use

Connection methodFormatAuthentication
DirectIP:PortCredentials, IP whitelist

Proxy-Seller offers dedicated datacenter proxies in static lists. These proxies appear in the format of IP:port, which has been the market standard for over a decade.

The SOCKS5 configuration takes a different port. Proxy-Seller’s system is inconvenient in this regard, as it exports the same IP twice with both ports. But this is a minor nuisance. 

Pricing Plans

ModelFormatModifiersStarting priceTrial
Subscription (week-year)Pay per IPLocation, subscription durationFrom $1.07 for 1 US IP24-hour refund

Proxy-Seller charges per IP address, letting you buy as few as one proxy. The mixed plans, however, start from 50 IPs.

In any case, you’ll be paying for a timed subscription that ranges from a week to a year. Choosing a longer period gives an increasing discount, and one month’s subscription is only twice more expensive than a week’s. That said, past this point the savings diminish. 

The price also depends on volume. Naturally, getting more proxies at once will be cheaper per unit. At 750 IPs, the discount reaches 35%, which is significant. Location matters, too: proxies in Indonesia cost over twice more than in the US. 

Performance Benchmarks

We last tested Proxy-Seller’s 50 dedicated US proxies in January 2024.

Performance with popular targets

We made ~2,600 connection requests to each target using a non-headless Python scraper. Our computer was located in Germany. We verified results by checking the response code, page size, and title. Note that your results may differ based on your web scraping setup. 

 
Avg. success rate
Avg. response time
Amazon
32.20%1.68 s 
Google
86.84%1.04 s 
Homedepot
74.40%1.39 s
Total
64.48%
1.37 s

The proxies performed okay, with Amazon being an exception. On the other hand, the success rate with Google was high for datacenter IPs. 

Coverage

CountriesTargetingDistribution
Over 20 in four continentsCountry (self-service),
city (upon request)		One per plan or mixed packages (world, Europe, Asia, etc.)

Proxy-Seller ISP proxies cover fewer locations than the datacenter service. Still, over 20 countries are nothing to scoff at, especially when they’re spread throughout four continents. 

Around a half is located in Europe. Other than that, you’ll find the US, Canada, Brazil and major Asian locations like China and India. 

A plan lets you choose IPs from one location, but there are also mixed packages that combine several countries in various proportions.

Americas Europe Asia Africa Oceania Other
US,
Canada,
Brazil

Austria,
England,
France,
Germany,
Netherlands,
Norway,
Poland,
Romania,
Spain,
Ukraine

 China,
Hong Kong,
India,
Israel,
Japan,
Singapore,
South Korea,
Taiwan,
Thailand,
Turkey 		 – – Mix packages (world, Europe, Asia & more)

Features

RotationTrafficConcurrencyProtocolsOther
StaticUnlimitedUnlimited threadsHTTP(S), SOCKS5Free monthly replacement

Being dedicated, the ISP proxies never rotate. If you wish, you’re free to replace all or individual IPs once a month free of charge. 

The product imposes no traffic or concurrency limitations, and it supports the SOCKS5 protocol. This makes it versatile for all kinds of purposes. 

Integration & Use

Connection methodFormatAuthentication
DirectIP:PortCredentials, IP whitelist

You get access to a finite list of IPs. They can change after a month, or you can keep extending subscription to all or individual IPs for longer periods of time.   

Pricing Plans

ModelFormatModifiersStarting priceTrial
Subscription (week-year)Pay per IPLocation, subscription durationFrom $1.5 for 1 US IP24-hour refund

Proxy-Seller uses a subscription model with plans that range from a week to a year. It’s possible to get only one proxy, which is nice if you have minimal needs. At the same time, enterprises can buy 1,000 or more proxy servers at an increasing discount. The mixed plans start from 50 IPs. 

In addition to volume and duration, the price also depends on IP location. Some, like England, can be up to 3x expensive as the cheapest countries, such as Ukraine. 

Compared to premium providers, the price isn’t high at all, at it scales healthily as you buy more. 

Performance Benchmarks

We last tested Proxy-Seller’s 50 dedicated ISP proxies in January 2024. Our IPs were associated with Lumen, a major American ISP, and came from two subsequent subnets. 

IP type

We benchmarked the IPs using the IP2Location database to see how many of them were identified as residential addresses (ISP, ISP/MOB, or MOB categories).

Residential percentage
100%

All of the IPs were categorized as residential proxies (usage type: ISP), which is a great result. 

Performance with popular targets

We made ~2,600 connection requests to each target using a non-headless Python scraper. Our computer was located in Germany. We verified results by checking the response code, page size, and title. Note that your results may differ based on your web scraping setup. 

 
Avg. success rate
Avg. response time
Amazon
73.05%2.92 s
Google
99.56%0.93 s
Homedepot
99.97%3.50 s
Total
90.86%
2.45 s

The IPs aced Google and Homedepot, which shows that the proxies hadn’t been abused with these targets. The Amazon performance was decent, as well, despite some blocks.

Pool Size & Coverage

Advertised pool sizeLocationsTargeting options
15 millionGlobalRegion, country, state, city, ASN

Proxy-Seller advertises to control over 15 million residential IPs. The proxies cover all countries and support very precise filtering options, including city and ASN. You’re free to combine all the filters together, which is useful and something not every competitor offers. 

Features

RotationTrafficConcurrencyProtocolsOther
Every request, 5-60 mins, manualLimited (plan based)Unlimited threads & portsHTTP(S), SOCKS5–

The residential proxies have flexible rotation settings: you can configure them to change with every connection request or select increments up to 60 minutes. In addition, there’s an option to manually force rotation for all sessions. 

As is often the case with pool-based residential networks, there’re no limits on parallel threads and ports. This means you can scrape as fast as you want (or the infrastructure can handle).

Both HTTP(S) and SOCKS5 connection protocols are supported, though the latter will likely be severely limited. 

Integration & Use

Connection methodFormatAuthentication
Gateway addressIP:Port:Username:Password Credentials, IP whitelist

You can connect to these proxies through a gateway address, which uses the IP:Port format. 

Instead of adding parameters to the username or password like other providers do, the system rather creates randomized usernames based on the options you choose. For instance, Californian-filtered proxies can have a username called f7a24d8b06c0a210, while German proxies will have a username of 8bb473d94dcb3118. The password remains the same.

Sticky sessions are made by changing port numbers. Proxy-Seller supports generating up to 1,000 ports in one go. 

To help you make sense of this system, the dashboard allows saving and naming lists with different filters. Still, it’s not exactly intuitive to use.

Pricing Plans

ModelFormatModifiersStarting priceTrial
Pay as you go SubscriptionPay per traffic–$3.5 for 1 GB3 days for $1.99

Proxy-Seller uses a subscription-based pricing model for the residential service, with monthly plans. Alternative, you can pay as you go at a fixed rate of $3.5/GB.

For customers with bigger needs, the plans on display scale up to one terabyte of traffic. 

In a broader context, Proxy-Seller positions itself very competitively compared other mid-range providers: it costs less than Smartproxy and very similarly to IPRoyal. That said, it can’t quite compare to price leaders like PacketStream or Dataimpulse.

Performance Benchmarks

We last tested Proxy-Seller’s residential proxies in February 2024. 

#1: Pool size & composition

We ran 1M requests over 21 days using the unfiltered pool, 500,000 requests over 14 days using the country pools, and 140,000 connection requests over 7 days using the Australian pool. We calculated residential IP % by consulting IP2Location’s usage type data point (ISP and/or MOB).

GatewayUnique IPsResidential %
Random602,01892.44%
US150,97689.42%
UK83,43489.85%
Germany64,16289.44%
France22,68577.32%
India124,44196.44%
Australia10,13379.24%

In our benchmarks, Proxy-Seller had a respectable proxy pool with over 500,000 IPs around the world and more than 150,000 proxies in the United States. It should be enough for serious web scraping use. My only concern is that the IP2Location database identified a significant number of the IPs as non-residential addresses. 

#2: Infrastructure performance

We made ~780,000 requests over 7 days. Our computer was located in Germany. We targeted a global CDN – it pinged a server nearest to the proxy IP and had a response size of several kilobytes.

Avg. success rateAvg. response time
  

Proxy-Seller’s residential proxies experienced some connection errors but performed well overall. There were no bigger downtimes during the testing period – rather, the success rate consistently hovered around 98%. 

proxy seller residential proxies success rate graph
Success rate graph for the unfiltered pool.

The proxies were also among the faster ones we’ve tried, rivaling premium providers like SOAX and Bright Data. Overall, I was happy with the infrastructure’s performance.

Performance with popular targets

We made ~2,600 connection requests to each target using a non-headless Python scraper, and Puppeteer with a stealth plugin for the social media network. Our computer was located in Germany. We verified results by checking the response code, page size, and title. Note that your results may differ based on your web scraping setup. 

 
Avg. success rate
Avg. response time
Amazon
88.86%3.94 s
Google
91.26%2.45 s
Photo-focused social media network
95.45%4.98 s
Total
91.86%3.79 s

The proxies also performed well with real targets, loading their pages successfully around nine times out of 10. 

Coverage

 SharedDedicated
Countries8+ in three continents18+ in four continents
TargetingCountry-level (one per plan)
Carriers1-2 per country1-4 per country

Proxy-Seller’s mobile proxies have a big country variety for this type of service – more so for the dedicated than the shared type. These are predominantly European locations, with one or two countries in other continents. However, you can’t really specify where in that country you want the proxy to be, which may be a downside for US-based tasks. 

Some countries also let you select a carrier. The dedicated type always has more carriers to choose from, up to four in the US. Technically, three, as Proxy-Seller treats T-Mobile and T-Mobile 5G as separate options. 

* Dedicated only

AmericasEuropeAsiaAfricaOceania
US

Bulgaria*,
Czech,
England,
France*,
Germany,
Italy*,
Lithuania,
Netherlands*,
Poland*,
Portugal*,
Romania*,
Spain, Switzerland*,
Ukraine

India*,
Thailand* 		–Australia*

Features

 SharedDedicated
Rotation5/10/30 mins, manual
TrafficUnlimited
ConcurrencyLimited ports (plan based)
ProtocolsHTTP(S), SOCKS5
Connection speed2-5 Mbps2-100 Mbps

The mobile proxies rotate automatically every five, 10, or 30 minutes. This, and the limited number of IPs you can access at once, makes them unsuitable for web scraping. But that isn’t what such proxies are used for, anyway.

You can also rotate the IP manually, by using a provided link. This only works for some countries, and exclusively for the dedicated proxies. 

The shared proxies are all slow. The dedicated proxies can reach 100 Mbps, but this is only possible with T-Mobile’s 5G plan. Most of the time, the speed should vary between five and 30 Mbps.

Integration & Use

Connection methodFormatAuthentication
Gateway server IP:PortCredentials, IP whitelist

You get access to a gateway server in the form of IP:Port. When an IP rotates, the gateway address remains the same. 

If you buy several proxies, they all come with identical details, except for the port number.

Pricing Information

ModelFormatModifiersStarting priceTrial
Subscription (week-year)Pay per portCountry, carrier$7 for 1 port24-hour refund

Proxy-Seller charges for the devices you can access at once (ports). The subscription period ranges from a week to a year, with various options in-between. 

The starting price is very cheap for mobile proxies – but only if you buy a shared plan for a week. For more regular, monthly use, a shared device costs between $14-41, while a dedicated device will make your wallet $40-$180 lighter.

Which end of the range you end up depends on the country and carrier. T-Mobile 5G is the most expensive at $180/month, while a dedicated Kyivstar device costs only $40.

In general, these mobile proxies are very affordable most of the time. But if you need the best connection quality, their price rivals premium competitors. 

Proxy-Seller User Experience

This section goes through what it’s like to use Proxy-Seller: its dashboard, subscription management, and customer service experience. 

Registration

To register with Proxy-Seller, you simply need to enter your email address. This will redirect you to the dashboard where you can enter a password and start using the service. 

Alternatively, it’s possible to register with Apple, Facebook, Google, and even Telegram accounts. 

Dashboard

Proxy-Seller provides a dashboard for managing interactions with its products. 

The dashboard is divided into tabs dedicated for various tasks: managing the profile, configuring and exporting proxy servers, setting up payments and adding money, viewing the payment history, accessing API documentation, and getting support. 

The dashboard integrates with the website, showing traffic and other notifications as long as you’re logged in. You can set up two-factor authentication and view everything in 16 languages. 

Overall, you’ll be able to achieve mostly everything by yourself. 

proxy seller main page proxy seller dashboard profile proxy seller dashboard orders

Subscription Management

Proxy-Seller’s dashboard includes a wallet where you can add balance. It’s also possible to buy a plan directly. It’s nice that you have the option to select whether to renew a plan.  

The wallet approach is way more flexible: additional payment methods are supported (namely, crypto) and if you set up automatic refresh, you can be charged without making new transactions. 

Proxy-Seller uses multiple processors for each payment type, including Paddle, Solidgate, Coinbase, Cryptomus, and Advcash. Each carries different fees.

The dashboard displays your payment history, but it doesn’t seem to generate downloadable invoices. 

proxy seller dashboard balance proxy seller dashboard pruchases

Proxy Management

For its datacenter, ISP, and mobile proxies, Proxy-Seller has tables that list all available IPs. A table shows the IP address, location, status, expiration date, and rotation options where applicable. You can’t interact with these tables much, other than selecting which IPs to auto-renew. It’s possible to export the list in various formats, including TXT, CSV, or a format of your choice.

The implementation is tidy, but imperfect. With mobile proxies, it shows both shared and dedicated types in one place, which can confuse. Furthermore, the exporting function generated both HTTP and SOCKS5 formats for each address, which caused us to scratch our heads why every second request was failing. 

The page for residential proxies includes a widget. You can select various filters, authorization method, number of ports, and create a list. The system allows saving and naming these lists for future access, and they reflect in usage statistics. In effect, a list functions as a basic version of a sub-user. 

proxy seller datacenter proxy setup proxy seller residential proxy setup

Usage Tracking

Proxy-Seller’s usage tracking capabilities are limited. The unlimited traffic products provide no statistics whatsoever, and the residential proxies only show your expended and remaining bandwidth: either for the whole package or per the list you’ve generated.  

The second option is more comprehensive: there’s a graph that shows data use for three months. The graph can be expanded or contracted to present information in different levels of detail. Below it, there’s a table for more fine-grained statistics. 

There are usability issues, though: traffic is counted in bytes, while lists are displayed not by the names you gave them but by automatically generated and mostly incomprehensible usernames. 

proxy seller dashboard main usage tracking proxy seller dashboard usage tracking second method

Public API

Proxy-Seller’s public API is available in five programming languages. It lets you fully manage interactions with the platform through code. You can:

  • View and top up your balance.
  • Create, calculate the price of, and renew orders.
  • Download proxy lists. 
  • Check basic information about a proxy and general service availability.


The API affects all products, though residential proxies get a separate section with their own extra endpoints. You’re allowed to make up to one API request per second. 

proxy seller api
The API is fleshed out.

Supporting Tools

Proxy-Seller offers several online tools to help work with proxies. Among them there’s a proxy checker, open port scanner, and a lookup of IP-related information. There’re also two latency-related tools, one of which can ping a website and IP, and the other that shows the connection route. 

Documentation

Proxy-Seller has an FAQ section that covers each product. It does a decent job answering the main questions. 

There’s also the blog where you’ll find over 100 configuration guides for browsers, operating systems, and other software. If you prefer the video format, the provider has made some of the guides available on its YouTube channel. Overall, information wasn’t something that we found lacking. 

Hands-On Support

Proxy-Seller’s customer supports works round the clock and can be contacted over multiple channels: live chat, Messenger, Skype, Telegram, and email. In addition, the provider offers the option of remote assistance for proxy setup. 

I had issues with setting up residential proxies and decided to try out the live chat. An agent responded in less than a minute. At first I was given several solutions that were loosely related to my problem, without much troubleshooting. But we were able to reach the bottom of the problem relatively quickly.

Overall, I was satisfied with the customer service experience. 

Conclusion

Overall, I had a positive experience with Proxy-Seller.

Its proxy networks are flexible in both location coverage and pricing. This is a big strength for individual users, as providers with similar feature variety usually cater to companies. Proxy-Seller is big enough to supply the latter, as well, though its user experience can get confusing and is probably too limited for enterprise needs. 

Throughout the testing period, I had few issues with proxies themselves, while the customer service provided quick help when I needed it. The pricing doesn’t bite, too. 

All in all, Proxy-Seller looks like a strong mid-range pick. Not perfect, and probably better for individual or small business use, but definitely a provider to be considered. 

Proxy-Seller Alternatives

smartproxy-logo
Rating 9.2 / 10
★★★★★ 4.6/5

Smartproxy has a similar price, arguably better user experience, and stronger residential proxy network. But its datacenter and ISP proxies are less diverse, with more rigid pricing. 

Visit Smartproxy

Read the review

Bright Data logo
Rating 9.1 / 10
★★★★★ 4.6/5

Bright Data is always a strong option, with even more flexibility and location coverage for all proxy networks. It costs way more for the same features, though, and has very strict policies. 

Visit Bright Data

Read the review

iproyal-logo
Rating 8 / 10
★★★★★ 4/5

IPRoyal is similar in many regards. Its datacenter and ISP proxies don’t need much commitment and cover nearly as many locations. The pricing is comparable, too. 

Visit IPRoyal

Read the review

Recommended for:

Individuals or small to medium businesses that need variety without the price tag.

Try Proxy-Seller

Use the coupon PROXYWAY to get 15% off for any purchase.

proxyseller logo
Rating 8.5 / 10
★★★★★ 4.3/5
Try Proxy-Seller

Use the coupon PROXYWAY to get 15% off for any purchase.

Picture of Chris Becker
Chris Becker
Proxy reviewer and tester.

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