Top 12 Proxy Networks for High-Quality IP Proxy Pool (2023)

Justin Shin

Are you looking for the best proxy network to purchase high-quality proxies from? Then you are on the right page, as the article below recommends some of the top proxy providers out there, you can use.

Table Of Contents

Overview of Top Proxy Networks

Top 12 Proxy Networks That CherryPicks Tested

Proxy Network Performance Detectability Location Coverage IP Pool & Features Suitable For
Bright Data Excellent Low Global IP rotation, session control, multiple protocols Overall best proxy network
Soax Excellent Low Global Clean proxy pool, API access, country targeting Best proxy network with clean proxy pool
Smartproxy Excellent Low Global Fast residential proxy network, multiple protocols Fastest residential proxy network
IPRoyal Excellent Low Global Unused bandwidth preservation, IP rotation, session control Best for preserving unused bandwidth
Oxylabs Excellent Low Global Largest residential proxy pool, real-time crawl dashboard Largest residential proxy pool
Shifter Excellent Low Global Unlimited bandwidth, custom plan options Best residential proxy network with unlimited bandwidth
ProxyEmpire Good Low Global Multiple locations, high uptime Good alternative to IPRoyal
Hydraproxy Excellent Low Global Supports endless proxy list generation, multiple protocols Supports endless proxy list generation
Proxy-Cheap Good Low Global Cheapest residential proxy network, multiple protocols Cheapest residential proxy network
Netnut Good Low Global Static residential proxies, multiple protocols Best static residential proxy network
Nimbleway Excellent Low Global Customized plans, 24/7 support Best for large scale scraping
PacketStream Excellent Low Global Ethical residential proxy network, no monthly commitments Ethical residential proxy network for occasional use

The proxy market is not regulated, and this has led to a good number of non-compliant, low-quality providers showing up on proxy users' radars. If you are not careful, you will end up with a bad provider with good PR. It is for this reason, I have written this article — to recommend to you, the best proxy networks in the market that we trust.

These providers offer high-quality proxies that you can use for a good number of tasks. While there are many types of proxies in the market, our focus in this article is on residential proxies since they are the recommended proxies for most use uses. I have made this list based on a number of factors, including performance, detectability, location coverage, and IP rotation system, among others.

In the end, you will have to make a choice based on your specific project requirement and your budget since proxy networks are within different price points.

1. Bright Data — Overall Best Proxy Network

Bright Data is seen by many as the leader in the proxy market, and this is not without reasons. It is known for its innovations in the market, the high performance of its proxies, and the advanced features it offers. Bright Data offer proxies in all of the proxy categories. For it residential proxies, you are given access to a pool of 72 million IP addresses to use — IPs are dynamically assigned and done randomly after every request.

However, you can choose to use their sticky ports, which will maintain sessions for up to an hour. With this provider, you can get IPs from all regions of the world at different levels — country, state, and city. This makes it perfect for accessing localized data from any region of the world. Bright Data is built to scale, which makes it perfect for enterprise customers. The only major problem with this provider is its mandatory KYC process.

2. Soax — Best Proxy Network with Clean Proxy Pool

One secret not known to many users is that the IPs in the pool of residential IPs are not owned by them, and as such, the actual number of active IPs in their pool is smaller than they brag. Soax is one of the providers that are trying to solve this problem. And how does it do that? It regularly checks its proxy pool in other to remove bad IPs. This result in it having a clean proxy pool which will reduce the number of unsuccessful requests.

Soax has got over 5 million IP addresses in its pool, sourced from over 100 countries across the globe. Just like Bright Data and Nimbleway, this proxy network is a rotating proxy network. However, unlike Bright Data, you wouldn’t get as many unique IPs, especially if you are a heavy user that sends hundreds of thousands of requests. The means if you want to operate at this scale, Soax is not for you.

3. Smartproxy — Fastest Residential Proxy Network

Smartproxy is a premium proxy provider that is known for its speed. I carried out a performance test sometime back, and this proxy network was head to head with Bright Data and Oxylabs — but then surpassing them in terms of response time. This makes it the fastest proxy network in the residential market. In terms of proxy pool size, Smartproxy has got over 40 million IPs in the pool which you can use at no extra cost — you get charged based on bandwidth usage.

This proxy network also offers a proxy list generator. Using this tool, you can create as many proxy endpoints as you need, and each endpoint will have its own IP address and session. While the network is also a rotating proxy network, you can use its sticky proxy ports to maintain a session for up to 30 minutes. This provider, together with Bright Data, offers a friendly Pay-As-You-Go service which is a plus considering their premium status in the market.

4. IPRoyal — Best for Preserving Unused Bandwidth

In the proxy market, you pay for proxies monthly regardless of whether the proxies are charged based on bandwidth or the number of ports. This puts small proxy users at a disadvantage, and IPRoyal is here to fix that. For this provider, pricing is based on bandwidth and affordable. But this is not the sweet spot — your bandwidth never expires until you consume it.

However, the number of IPs in their pool can’t be compared to the other providers above, as it has got just over 2 million IPs. This is small if you consider the fact that the actual number available to you is smaller. This makes it perfect for only small and mid-scale proxy users. It offers both high-rotating proxies that change IP after every request and session proxy that maintains IPs for a while. From this provider, you also have the option to choose IPs from any country, state, and city — a feature known as geo-targeting.

5. Oxylabs — Largest Residential Proxy Pool

Oxylabs and Bright Data share a lot of similarities and can be said to be rivals in the industry — they have had a court case in the past. This provider, just like Bright Data, has a large proxy pool. In fact, Oxylabs residential proxy pool is bigger than that of Bright Data, as it has gone over 100 million residential IPs. This makes it the largest proxy pool in the market. Oxylabs does not only have a large proxy pool, but it also has got the spread in terms of location coverage as all countries and most big cities around the world are supported.

The proxies are high-rotating proxies that randomly assign you IP after every request. This makes it perfect for web scraping tasks if you also consider it a large proxy pool. It also does have a good session control system that helps you maintain the same IP address for a while. As in the case of Bright Data, you are also forced to do KYC in other to make use of their service.

6. Shifter — Best Residential Proxy Network with Unlimited Bandwidth

The de facto pricing model of the residential proxy market is based on consumable bandwidth. This can be problematic and even hike up your proxy cost if your task consumes a lot of bandwidth. With the likes of shifter.io, you will not have to deal with this. shifter.io is one of the providers that charge users based on ports and allow them to consume unlimited bandwidth.

Looking at its pricing, you can tell it is not for small proxy users. If you are a small proxy user and still want to benefit from unlimited bandwidth for residential proxies, you should take a look at Stormproxies. This is because you need a minimum of $250 to make use of this service. This proxy is highly powered and scalable — perfect for critical infrastructure.

It has got good location support with a unique IP rotation system. With this service, there are no high rotating proxies — what you have are time-based rotating proxies, and you can maintain a session for up to 60 minutes.

7. ProxyEmpire — Good Alternative to IPRoyal

The ProxyEmpire service is one of the best residential proxy providers in the market. This service offers both rotating and static residential proxies. In this article, the proxies of interest to us are their rotating residential proxies. The offering and features resemble that of IPRoyal but also with an edge. With this service, your bandwidth never expires, which makes it perfect for non-heavy proxy users.

It is better than IPRoyal in terms of having a much larger pool size, but this comes at a cost — it is more expensive than IPRoyal. This service allows you to enjoy unlimited bandwidth and does have support for both HTTPS and SOCKS5 protocols. For this service, pricing is based on bandwidth, and you can either go for their Pay-As-You-Go payment option or purchase any of their packages. Their package options give you a discount and are best for those that need to purchase more than 1GB.

8. Hydraproxy — Supports Endless Proxy List Generation

Hydraproxy is one of the small proxy providers you can trust. This provider has got over 5 million residential IP addresses in its pool. In terms of location coverage, Hydraproxy does have IPs from over 100 countries across the globe. With this, you can start local data from most regions fo the world. Unlike the other big providers, there is no support for state and city-level geo-targeting.

One of the features you will come to like in Hydraproxy is its proxy list generator. Using this tool, you should be able to generate as many endpoints as you need for your tasks. And this is at no extra cost to you since you get charged based on bandwidth consumption. It is also important you know that each of the proxy endpoints generated will have its unique IP address and, by extension, session. This service has a good session control feature allowing you to maintain a session for up to 30 minutes. It also does offer high-rotating proxies.

9. Proxy-Cheap — Cheapest Residential Proxy Network

If you are a small proxy user, chances are; you do not need all of the advanced features that make the top providers expensive. The best option for you is to get a small-scale provider that performs excellently well, and that is where Proxy-Cheap comes in. Proxy-Cheap is one of the best providers out there, with an eye for providing cheap and affordable residential proxies.

Proxy-Cheap and Hydraproxy can be seen to be at the same level and offer the same service. With just $5, you can get 1GB from these providers. And as you purchase more bandwidth, the price per GB reduces. Also, with this service, there is no minimum monetary requirement as you can get started with them with just 1GB. Proxy-Cheap has got over 6 million IP addresses in its pool, with over 127 countries supported. As in the case of most providers above, it offers both rotating and sticky proxies.

10. NetNut –  Best Static Residential Proxy Network

NetNut ISP

NetNut is a rising proxy service based in Israel that's fast gaining a reputation in the industry. They offer various types of proxy services like datacenter proxies, rotating proxies, static residential proxies, and unblockable mobile proxies. Their proxies are mainly sought after by businesses in fields like advertising, consulting, and internet services. The major characteristics of their IPs are speed, reliability, and anonymity, making them a smart choice for all heavy data-related needs.

Global Coverage

Despite being a relatively new company, they have grown massively over the last few years already. With well over 52 million proxies across the globe, NetNut is already one of the largest proxy services simply by proxy count alone. NetNut leverages advanced geo-targeting techniques to maximize its global IP presence. This makes them ideal for data-centric tasks such as market research, competitor analysis, threat analysis, ad verification, and so on.

Great Customer Support:

NetNut cares about keeping its customers happy, and its approach to customer service demonstrates that. When you're a NetNut customer, you get attached to a personal account manager who can help with your peculiar needs. You enjoy multi-channel support as you wish, so you can quickly get answers to any questions that spring up. It's always easier to deal with the best people, especially in a technical field.

11. Nimbleway — Best Proxy Network for Large Scale Scraping

Web data extraction is one of the areas where proxies find their use case. And while all of the other providers on the list support scraping, including Bright Data above, Nimbleway is built from the ground up for web data extraction. It has got a proxy network known as Nimble IP that offers high-quality proxies to its users. This provider chooses the best IP for each of your requests — the best here is based on your target site and use case.

This means that there are situations it uses residential IPs while there are those it makes use of datacenter IPs or even mobile proxies. This helps you save costs on a large scale. One thing you will also come to like about Nimble IP is its extensive location support which powers the geo-targeting feature for localized data extraction. Aside from Nimble IP, Nimbleway also offers a scraping API known as Nimble API and an automation browser known as Nimble Browser.

12. PacketStream — Ethical Residential Proxy Network

Anytime you make use of residential proxies, you should ask yourself how they get the IP address, as you could be enabling hackers and unethical behaviors. PacketStream is one of the services that are open about the source of its IP addresses. And even as a user, you can share your Internet bandwidth and make money from it.

It also has SDKs that developers can integrate into their app to convert the apps to proxy endpoints. This provider has got over 7 million IP addresses in its pool. In terms of location coverage, PacketStream has got worldwide location coverage, making it perfect for accessing geo-targeted web content. The proxies offered by PacketStream are rotating residential proxies. However, the service does have support for maintaining sessions by providing sticky ports.

FAQs

Q. How Can I Get Free Proxies?

All of the providers mentioned above are all paid proxies. And there is a reason free proxies aren’t captured on the list. Regardless of the proxy type, free proxies are not good, especially for any serious project. This is because they come with performance issues coupled with security and privacy risk. Most of them are also detectable, making their usage a waste of time. A simple Google search will reveal a good number of them. However, they are not really useful and, as such, should be avoided. Instead of free proxies, you are better off making use of shared proxies from good providers.

Q. Is KYC a Must for Proxy Network?

Not many proxy users are comfortable with the idea of doing KYC. Some are for malicious reasons, while others are just concerned about their privacy. Whichever is the case, there is a growth in the number of proxy networks that require KYC, and this is to keep the bad guys away. For top providers like Bright Data and Oxylabs, KYC is a must, especially for their residential proxies. Other providers will only require KYC if there is suspicion surrounding your activities. However, the smaller providers do not even require KYC to allow you to scale through.

Q. Are Top Proxy Networks Undetectable?

Proxy usage can be tricky, and for the most part, you wouldn’t want to be caught making use of them. This is because some top websites online will block you from proxy usage. But will top providers protect you? For the most part, top proxy providers like the ones mentioned in the article above have stealth mode built into them. This makes it difficult for them to get detected. However, this does not mean you can’t be detected, as some sites could get a hold of their network. In other scenarios, your behavior could suggest to your target sites that you are making use of proxies — this is when you begin to see Captchas. However, this could also mean you are suspected to be a bot.

Conclusion

Looking at the above, you can see the list of top proxy providers I trust that you can use. I didn’t just make up the list. I have personally tasted their proxies in previous reviews written about each of the providers mentioned above. In the end, you will be the one to choose the one most appropriate for you and that will be a product of the specific features you require and your budget. However, if you need to send hundreds of thousands of web requests, then go for the providers with large proxy pools to be on the safer side.

Related Posts

Top 10 Web Scraping Practice Sites (2023)

Are you looking to test your web scraping practical skills and looking for the best sites to test it out? Then read the article below to discover the best ...