The 5 Best Proxy Providers of 2024- NetNut

Introduction

A proxy server acts as an intermediary between your device and the website you are visiting. Subsequently, it masks your IP address to ensure you can access restricted content while maintaining anonymity, security, and data privacy. Some common use cases of proxies include web data extraction, ad verification, price monitoring and more.

Therefore, the proxy industry is booming with many providers offering various IP pool sizes, customer support capabilities, price options and more. Choosing the best proxy provider out of all the many options can be as difficult as looking for a pin in a haystack. As a result, we have compiled the best proxy providers of 2024 to make it easier for you to make an informed choice.

What is a Proxy Provider?

A proxy provider is a company that provides access to different types of proxy IPs. When you send a request via a proxy IP, it routes your request through the proxy server. Subsequently, the proxy server acts as a gateway receiving the response from the target website before delivering it to you. As a result, using a proxy ensures your actual IP address and location remains unknown thereby ensuring anonymity for your online activities. 

Many websites use cookies to collect users’ information that allows them to display personalized pages. Although the aim of this is to optimize user experience, malicious agents are quickly leveraging it to get access to users’ sensitive information. As a result, the use of proxies by individuals and organizations has become crucial. 

Factors to Consider When Choosing the Right Proxy Provider

Here are some factors to consider when comparing the best proxy providers on the market:

IP pool

One of the most crucial factors to consider when choosing the right proxy provider is the size of their IP pool. This factor is crucial, especially if you need these proxies for automated activities like web scraping. Web data extraction requires you to frequently change your IP address to avoid IP bans. Subsequently, a large IP pool ensures anonymity, as you can switch IPs with each request. Therefore, it is crucial to consider the number of IPs in the proxy pool as well as the diversity of the available IPs. 

Speed and performance

Another critical factor to consider is the speed and response time of the proxies. The speed describes the rate of data transfer between the proxy server and the target website. Subsequently, proxies that provide high speed ensure faster data transfer, which is crucial for large scale web scraping activities. 

On the other hand, response time describes the time it takes for a request to travel from the client to the server. Subsequently, low response rates are crucial for time-sensitive activities like real-time data extraction, live streaming and more. 

The speed and response time of proxies plays a significant role in their performance. Therefore, you need to choose a proxy provider that offers high speed with low response time. You can check out a recent guide on how to test proxies. 

Cost

For this guide, we shall not consider any free proxies for security reasons. With proxies, the cheapest option may not always fit your project specification. Proxy providers offer various packages at different costs. Therefore, you need to compare the cost of proxies from reputable providers against what they offer before making a choice. Evaluating the cost to the value of proxies involves careful consideration of some factors like:

• Pay-as-you-go option: The pay-as-you-go option means that users do not need to commit to a long-term contract like a monthly or yearly subscription fee. Instead, the charge is based on proxy usage. This option is best for small businesses that do not frequently need to use proxies.
• Extra features and support: Some proxy providers offer some extra features like dedicated customer support and city-level geo-targeting at an extra cost. However, some others include these features and support in their regular plans. 
• Proxy type: The type of proxy you need plays a significant role in the overall cost. Residential proxies are often very expensive as they are associated with actual residences. Mobile proxies are also expensive as they are reliable. On the other hand, datacenter proxies are less expensive, but they are easy to block.   

IP rotation

IP rotation is a situation where your requests are distributed across multiple sources. Many websites have anti-scraping measures to ensure that bots are not accessing their data. Subsequently, these anti-scraping measures are designed to tell the difference between a request coming from a human and that coming from a bot. Automated programs or bots often send too many requests within a short period. However, automated IP rotation allows scrapers and crawlers to mimic human-like behavior and avoid getting blocked.

Legal and ethical considerations

It is crucial to consider a proxy provider that sources IP addresses ethically and transparently. This is necessary to ensure that the proxies ensure compliance with the law and regulations governing data protection and customer privacy. Compliance with rules and regulations related to web scraping is an indication of a reliable proxy provider.

Customer support

 Customer support is crucial to ensuring a positive experience. It is not uncommon for users to experience challenges when integrating proxies with various tools. Therefore, it is best to choose a provider that offers 24/7 support across various platforms. 

5 Best Proxy Providers 2024

This section will explore the 5 top options for proxy providers in 2024. In addition, we shall cover their strengths and weaknesses so that you can determine the best one for your specific need. 

1. NetNut

NetNut is a reputable proxy provider that has a large IP pool- over 85 million rotating IPs and 5 million+ mobile IPs that cover 195 countries. This extensive coverage makes it an ideal option for big businesses. It also offers datacenter, static residential proxies as well as dedicated IPs for residential proxies. 

In addition, NetNut stands out in providing excellent customer support via different challenges including live chat, email, skype, and phone calls. Subsequently, NetNut offers extensive documentation that covers how to integrate proxies on various browsers and platforms. 

NetNut is a premium proxy provider that offers a 7-day free trial for businesses. Some exciting features of NetNut include geo-targeting, IP whitelisting, automated IP rotation, and more. In addition, NetNut has an intuitive and easy-to-use dashboard that allows you to manage proxies in real-time. 

Since it focuses on enterprise clients, NetNut offers more consistent and transparent pricing models. This proxy provider is known for its stable connectivity and high speed, with a guarantee of 99.9% uptime. It supports HTTP, HTTPS, and SOCKS5 proxy protocols. 

Furthermore, NetNut provides other solutions that optimize web data collection including Scraper API, and Website Unblocker that ensures unrestricted access to web content. Users can also enjoy tailored private proxy pools for optimized performance . 

2. Oxylabs

Oxylabs is a popular name in the proxy industry that focuses on mid-range and enterprise clients. It provides access to over 102 million IPs from many countries in the world to ensure geographical restrictions are never a cause of worry. In addition, Oxylab offers residential, ISP, mobile, datacenter  (both shared and dedicated) proxies as well as a Web unblocker. 

Oxylabs supports HTTP, HTTPS, and SOCKS5 proxy protocols. A unique feature of this proxy provider is that it offers free advanced geo-targeting to the customers. Since there is a focus on customer satisfaction, Oxylabs offers customizable proxy solutions. 

Another exciting feature is the easy-to-use dashboard that allows users to manage their proxy IPs from their devices. Users have 24/7 support via live chat and the dedicated account manager. In addition, Oxylabs also offers a 7-day free trial to new users. The pay-as-you-go option is only available for mobile and residential proxies. However, they come with traffic restrictions- the maximum is 30Gb of mobile proxy traffic or 50GB of residential traffic. Likewise, the self-service dedicated datacenter plans cover limited locations. 

Oxylabs has a fast growing network of users because of its incredible speed, stability and performance. It offers unlimited bandwidth and support tools like a proxy manager app extension, residential proxy endpoint generator, third-party integrations, and more.

To ensure ethical use of proxies, Oxylabs has a strict KYC policy that requires all potential customers to go through a verification process. In addition, all Oxylab’s products are insured and this guarantees maximum privacy and security. Oxylabs may not be the best option for individuals because of its high pricing. 

3. Smartproxy

Smartproxy is another smart choice for a proxy provider that offers residential, datacenter, and mobile IPs. The residential and mobile IPs cover locations across the globe, the rotating datacenter proxies extend across 5 countries, while the ISP covers 9 countries. With over 65 million IP addresses in 195 locations, Smartproxy can be used for several cases including ad verification, multi-accounting, and more. 

Smartproxy stands out for its outstanding performance, competitive pricing, and customer service. This provider also provides access to tools like X Browser and Address Generator. One notable feature of Smartproxy is that it uses a KYC policy that ensures customer identification before using a proxy. 

In addition, Smartproxy solutions support HTTP, HTTPS, and SOCKS protocols. This proxy provider offers a balance between performance and cost. Users can get a free 3-day trial for residential proxies. However, if you want to activate your subscription immediately, there is a 14-day money-back option. Moreover, users can leverage the no-commitment option, which allows them to pay for only the gigabytes that they use- the “Pay As You Go” option.   

Some features that make Smartproxy highly sought after are the convenient proxy management tools (like browser extension) and free advanced targeting. Subsequently, this proxy provider serves both big and small businesses. 

Regardless of its excellent features, Smartproxy has limited targeting options- carrier or ASN targeting for residential proxies are currently unavailable. 

4. Bright Data

Founded in 2014, Bright Data has proven to be a reputable and reliable proxy provider in the industry. It boasts of millions of reliable and ethically sourced IP addresses that cover the globe. Its products include residential, datacenter, mobile, and ISP proxies on both shared and private servers. The network extends over 72+ million IPs in 195 countries, with city, ZIP code, carrier, and ASN geo-targeting. 

Bright Data controls some of the best web scraping proxies. It has the pay-as-you-go pricing model which ensures that both big and small businesses can use their services. More so, there is a 7-day free trial for business as well as guarantee of refund within 3 days for individuals who are not impressed with the products. Also, this provider has  a strict KYC policy to ensure ethical use of its services. 

Bright Data has a user-friendly proxy management dashboard that provides users with real-time stats. It also offers a proxy manager desktop application for easy management of proxy services. With free proxies and access to browser extensions as well as downloadable datasets, users can enjoy premium services at a fair cost.  Other products include Scraping Browser API, Web Scraper IDE, Web Scraper API, SERP API, and Web Unblocker.

On the other side, Bright Data prices may be unsuitable for new businesses. In addition, the dashboard may be difficult to navigate without contacting support. 

5. SOAX

SOAX is another proxy provider that is worth mentioning, as it boasts over 155 million proxy IPs in 195 countries. They offer residential proxies, datacenter proxies, ISP proxies, mobile proxies, both shared and dedicated. However, the ISP proxies are only within the United States of America.

Some of the limitations of this provider is that they do not offer a free trial (a 3-day trial for the $1.99 plan is available) or pay as you go plan. However, SOAX has very flexible and affordable proxies. Subsequently, you can select from a wide range of rotation settings and target the IPs up to the city and ASN level without incurring any extra cost. 

Support is available for customers via live chat, email support and large enterprises have access to dedicated customer success managers. For an affordable provider, SOAX proxies perform well. Obligatory IP whitelisting is a technical drawback that you must consider before collaborating with SOAX.  

Conclusion

This guide has examined some of the 5 best proxy providers in 2024. In addition, we have described some factors that you should consider before choosing the best proxy provider. While we hope that this guide has provided salient information, don’t hesitate to ask questions. You can always contact us to get more information on the best proxy type and plan for your business. 

The list in this guide contains only premium proxy providers because free proxies are unreliable. Therefore, if you are looking for a budget-friendly proxy provider that is reputable and reliable, NetNut has got you covered. 

Frequently Asked Questions

Why does your business need a premium proxy?

Apart from optimized anonymity, security, and privacy, there are several other reasons why your business may need a proxy. They include:

1. Bypassing geo-restrictions: Geo-restriction is a situation where you cannot access content due to your location. However, using a proxy IP from an unrestricted location gives you access to such content.
2. Load balancing: A server overload can occur when it receives too many requests within a short time. Subsequently, the overloaded server is unable to respond to all the requests. However, proxies can play a role in load balancing by distributing network traffic across multiple servers. 
3. Caching: Another reason why your business needs a premium proxy is caching. A proxy server stores a copy of previously retrieved data in a data storage. Subsequently, when a client requests for the data in the future, the proxy server retrieves it from its storage instead of sending a request to the website server. 
4. Optimized response time: Premium proxies offer better response time than free proxies. More so, dedicated proxies may be the ideal option if you want to complete an activity within the shortest period.  

What are the dangers of free proxies?

• Free proxies are not equipped to handle web-tracking technologies, which leave your data vulnerable. 
• Free proxies offer IP addresses of questionable origins.
• Many free proxies do not support HTTPS protocols, which is necessary to provide an additional layer of security and anonymity.
• There is no performance guarantee with free proxies as they are often unstable and uptime is poor
• IP rotation is not a common thing with free proxies, and this can lead to increased IP blocks. 

What are some warning signs to never ignore when choosing a proxy provider?

Here are some factors that may indicate that a proxy provider is unreliable:

• Poor performance
• Negative reviews from customers
• Poor customer support
• Lack of transparency
• Unethical IP sourcing
• Lack of compliance with data protection regulations
• Complicated pricing structure with a hidden fee