Webshare Review
Freemium access, flexible subscription management, and empowering user interface make Webshare a strong choice for users of all sizes.
Webshare is an up-and-coming provider that focuses on building a strong and competitively priced datacenter proxy infrastructure. It’s a go-to choice for over 30,000 active users and even Fortune 500 companies.
The provider doesn’t limit itself to only one product; it has expanded into ISP and, recently, residential proxies. For this and aspirations to grow further, Webshare gained our Newcomer of the Year award in the latest Proxy Market Research.
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 quality and refresh frequency to freely available proxy rotation even for its static proxy lists.
Is Webshare worth considering? Let’s find out.
News about Webshare
- June 21, 2023
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By Adam Dubois
- Provider News
General Information
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 main driving force of the service. According to the 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 web scraping in general. 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 Datacenter Proxies
Webshare’s datacenter proxies come in lists of shared, semi-dedicated, and dedicated IPs, or in a fixed-sized proxy pool that periodically rotates.
All four types support HTTP and SOCKS5 protocols. Webshare notes that the proxies run on very fast servers with aggregate network bandwidth of over 100 Gbps.
Additionally, the company offers a free plan with ten static datacenter proxies from four locations, and you get 1 GB of traffic (per month) with max. 50 parallel threads.
Features
Free country selection and many refresh options.
The proxies are available in around 40 locations. Most addresses are located in the US, but you can also choose other targets worldwide, including Europe, South America, and Asia. There’s an option to specify how many IPs you want from each location, but there’s no city targeting.
Webshare’s datacenter proxies come in two formats: a list of static proxies that you optionally share with others, and a proxy pool that rotates.
The static datacenter proxies don’t rotate by default. But you can buy any number of IPs you need and generate an endpoint via Webshare’s dashboard. This way, you’ll get one backconnect address that will automatically shuffle through your list with each connection request. This feature is free, and you won’t need to delve into code.
The rotating plan includes two pools of 50,000 and 200,000 proxies. Webshare charges for traffic and the addresses come in a backconnect format.
Both the rotating proxies and Webshare’s rotation feature allow you to set a session timeout (time a single proxy connection can stay running) from 15 seconds to up to 7 days, or an idle timeout (inactivity before connection is terminated) up to 2 hours.
You can also set a bandwidth limit ranging from 250 GB/month to unlimited. However, Webshare does impose restrictions on concurrency. By default, your subscription comes with 500 threads with an option to increase the limit to 3,000+ at an additional cost.
Webshare offers free auto-replacements if your proxy: 1) wasn’t available for more than 15 minutes, 2) has low country confidence, or 3) experiences a slowdown. If that’s not enough, the provider has very flexible refresh options for its list-based datacenter proxies, though using it does cost extra. Depending on your preferences, there are three options: automatic, on-demand, and individual replacements.
The first one allows you to receive a new batch IPs anywhere between three minutes and a month. With the second option you can manually refresh the whole list up to 1000 times. You can also buy from 10 to 100,000 individual IP replacements. Why would you need so many options? For example, you can buy 20 IPs and automatically refresh them every 5 or 10 minutes. This way, you get to use a large pool.
One of Webshare’s stand out features is verified proxy functionality. It gives you proxies that are specifically designed for Google Search and Amazon. You can also request a website of your choice. According to Webshare, more sites will be added in the future.
What’s more, Webshare offers a high priority network feature that will put your requests over others. It’s very useful if your use case is based on real-time applications like gaming or stock trading.
Pricing Plans
Affordable proxies with fully customizable plans.
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 get but also bandwidth, refreshes, and additional features like high priority network. Depending on the proxy type, the price for each modifier differs.
The list-based plans use a pay-per-IP pricing structure, while the rotating proxies charge for traffic use. The starting price is small, but the plans scale to thousands of IPs and up to unlimited traffic. You can buy a monthly subscription or pay yearly and get a 30% discount.
All in all, Webshare’s prices are affordable. The provider charges less than most premium or mid-range alternatives if you don’t add additional features.
Performance Benchmarks
Robust datacenter proxy infrastructure.
We last tested Webshare’s datacenter proxies in March 2023.
#1: Infrastructure performance
We ran 50,000 connection requests using Webshare’s US-filtered rotating proxies. 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.
#2: Download speed
We tested 10 rotating and 10 dedicated IPs using DigitalOcean’s 100 MB NYC benchmark.
#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.
Webshare ISP Proxies
Webshare’s ISP proxies are very much alike to their datacenter counterparts. You can choose list-based proxies and share them with several users, up to two users, or no one. Or you can buy rotating proxies that come from a fixed-size proxy pool. Both products support the SOCKS5 protocol.
Webshare gives a lot of variety with the subscription. You can manipulate every aspect of your plan, but mostly it all comes down to price.
Features
Flexible IP replacement options but limited location coverage
Webshare’s ISP proxy service is significantly smaller than the datacenter. Otherwise, it offers many of the same features: you can add more threads, up to unlimited traffic, enable high network priority, get unlimited IP authorizations and choose a verified proxy feature for Google Search and Amazon websites.
Webshare’s proxies are all located in the US. The provider offers from 20 to 10,000 addresses that come in the form of a list. These proxies are static, but there’s a feature that lets you rotate them with every connection request. Alternatively, you can get access to 50,000 or 200,000 pool-based addresses that automatically rotate.
You can choose sticky sessions with the rotating proxy plans and Webshare’s rotation feature. The session timeout is from 15 seconds to 7 days. And the idle timeout (inactivity before the proxy connection is ended) is between 15 seconds and 2 hours.
In terms of refreshes, by default you’ll get 10 individual proxy replacements with list-based plans. If you need, you can replace the entire list periodically (from 25 minutes to every month), buy individual replacements without changing the whole list (from 1 to 1000), or replace individual addresses (from 50 to 100,000).
Pricing Plans
Affordable shared ISP proxies, though additional features are pricey.
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.
The provider has a very flexible pricing model. For example, you can buy 20 shared IPs and refresh them every 5 hours. For $40.56, this would give you thousands of unique proxies over a month.
In a broader context, Webshare has very competitive prices if you disable all the toggles. The provider outprices some cheaper alternatives like IPRoyal. All in all, these proxies are a pretty good deal.
Performance Benchmarks
Beat our download speed without proxies.
We last tested Webshare’s ISP proxies in March 2023.
#1: IP type
We ran 50,000 connection requests using Webshare’s US-filtered rotating proxies. 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.
#2: Download speed
We benchmarked 10 random IPs using DigitalOcean’s 100 MB NYC benchmark.
#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.
Webshare Residential Proxies
Webshare’s residential proxies are the newest addition to the service. It offers a large proxy pool of 30 million IPs from real people’s devices. The provider applies traffic-based pricing rather than billing for the number of IPs.
Even though proxy ethicality is a hot topic, there’s no information on how the provider sources its residential IPs yet. And that doesn’t come as a surprise since Webshare is rarely present in the public eye.
Features
Good location coverage but not many features out of the box.
Webshare’s residential proxies come in a pool of 30 million monthly IPs in over 195 locations worldwide. The provider gives access to the whole proxy pool and you can target individual countries but there’s no city, ASN, or ZIP code filtering.
The proxies are linked to real users, so they inevitably rotate. But there’s an option to hold a single proxy connection from 15 seconds to 7 days. The idle timeout (inactivity) is between 15 seconds and 2 hours.
Webshare allows you to replace a proxy for free if it wasn’t available for 15 minutes, has low country confidence or it’s encountering a slowdown.
What’s more, the service already supports the SOCKS5 protocol, whereas some veteran providers can’t find the time to add this feature.
Compared to the broader market, Webshare’s residential service is pretty basic feature-wise.
Pricing Plans
Cheap proxies with multiple pricing options.
With residential proxies, you won’t pay per IP; instead, the provider 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.
Performance Benchmarks
Outperforms some old-timers.
We tested Webshare’s residential proxies in July 2023.
#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.
#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.
#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.
The residential proxies did relatively well with popular websites. They opened Amazon, Instagram, and Walmart over 95% of the time, so we can only assume that the proxies were clean. The only exception was Google; there seems to be a tendency with Webshare proxies and the major search engine. During the tests, most errors were 429, 502 service unavailable, and timeout issues.
How to Use Webshare
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.
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.
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.
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.
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. 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Hands-On Support
Customers can reach Webshare by email only. Support is available via email and chats (11PM-11AM PST). According to Webshare’s website, the customer support responds to each request within 24 hours. But that’s quite long if you’re having trouble using their services.
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 come with 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 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. What’s more, Webshare’s service has a very high download speed, so you should consider it for traffic-intensive tasks.
Webshare Alternatives
Smartproxy offers robust residential & mobile proxy infrastructure with more features. The service targets mid-sized customers and goes the extra mile for customer service.
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.
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.
Recommended for:
Anyone looking for affordable and fully-customizable proxy services.
