NetNut Review
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.
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
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By Adam Dubois
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General Information
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.
We cover individual proxy types in the expandable drop-downs below:
Datacenter
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
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
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
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
ISP (Static Residential)
Pool Size & Coverage
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.
Features
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
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
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
#1: Pool size & composition
We ran ~780,000 connection requests over 7 days using the US pool.
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.
#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.
Residential
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
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
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
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
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, 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
* IP2Location database, Usage type data point, ISP, ISP/MOB, MOB IPs.
** Combines Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands.
#2: IP quality
We checked 20,000 proxies in the Global pool and 10,000 proxies in the US using the IPQualityScore database.
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.
#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.
Mobile
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
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
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
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
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.
* IP2Location database, Usage type data point, ISP/MOB, MOB IPs.
** Combines Germany, France, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
Smartproxy offers cheaper rotating proxy pools, several scraping APIs, and a great user experience. It’s a strong performer and an overall value choice.
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.
Want more? View the full list of the NetNut alternatives.
Recommended for:
Data-hungry enterprises with strict compliance needs.
