Residential proxies have become an essential tool for companies across many industries looking to access geographically restricted content, conduct price monitoring, perform large-scale web scraping, and execute a variety of other data extraction activities.
The global proxy services market is projected to grow at an impressive CAGR of over 25% from 2022 to 2030, driven by the surging demand for web data scraping and need to circumvent anti-scraping mechanisms on sites. Many businesses are now leveraging residential proxies as part of their core data collection infrastructure.
According to ResearchAndMarkets.com, the Americas accounted for the largest share (34%) of the overall proxy services industry in 2021, underlining the high adoption rate in the region.
This article will compare the top 10 residential proxy providers of 2023 based on crucial factors like features, performance, pricing, reliability, and ease of use. We’ll also examine some of the leading use cases of residential proxies.
Why are Residential Proxies Useful?
Residential proxies can prove invaluable in the following situations:
Web Scraping – Residential proxies mimic real user traffic better than datacenter proxies. This makes them effective at bypassing restrictive bot detection and scraping difficult sites.
Geo-targeting – Businesses can use residential proxies to access content specific to certain locations and territories by routing traffic through IPs based in those geographies.
Ad Verification – Ad agencies use residential proxies to analyze ad campaigns and gain insights into how they are performing in different states, cities, and countries.
Price Monitoring – Retailers leverage residential proxies to check competitors‘ prices across geographic markets to stay competitive.
Brand Monitoring – Brands use proxies to monitor social media platforms, forums, and blogs for relevant mentions of their brand name and protect their reputation.
Market Research – Researchers use proxies to gather unbiased data from target demographics and understand consumer behavior in specific locales.
Now let‘s examine the top residential proxy providers that excel in catering to the above use cases.
1. Bright Data
Quick Facts:
- Founded: 2006
- Headquarters: Israel
- IP Pool: 72 million+
- Users: Fortune 500 companies like Amazon, Apple, Microsoft
Bright Data operates one of the largest pools of residential proxies optimized specifically for high-volume web scraping. Their network spans 72 million IPs across 195 locations globally.
Some standout features include:
- HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS5 support for web scraping
- 99.9% uptime SLA
- Under 500ms response time
- Automatic and manual IP rotation
- Country, state, and city-level targeting
- Integrations with Python, R, Selenium, etc.
- Dedicated account manager
- 7-day free trial
Bright Data also offers a free browser extension called the Proxy Manager that provides instant access to residential IPs for manual web scraping.
Pricing starts at $10.5 per GB, with custom enterprise plans also available. Bright Data provides excellent performance, granular geo-targeting, and intuitive proxy management, making them a top choice.
2. Oxylabs
Quick Facts:
- Founded: 2015
- Headquarters: Lithuania
- IP Pool: 100+ million
- Users: Fortune 500s, research, travel companies
Oxylabs manages over 100 million residential IPs optimized for heavy-duty web scraping and data extraction projects.
Their residential proxies feature:
- City, state, and country-level targeting
- Automatic and session-based IP rotation
- HTTP/SOCKS proxy support
- 99.95% uptime record
- Under 600ms response time
- Integrations for Python, Java, PHP, etc.
- 3-day free trial
They also offer a free web debugging tool called ProxyCrawl for checking and troubleshooting scraping issues.
Oxylabs is one of the largest European proxy providers, making them very adept at handling EU geo-targeting needs. Pricing starts at $15 per GB.
3. GeoSurf
Quick Facts:
- Founded: 2015
- Headquarters: USA
- IP Pool: 130+ million
- Users: Data miners, researchers, agencies
GeoSurf operates one of the largest US-based residential proxy networks with over 130 million IPs.
Some key capabilities include:
- Automatic and manual IP rotation
- Country-level targeting
- HTTP/HTTPS protocols
- Under 500ms response time
- 99.99% uptime SLA
- Python, Node.js, PHP integrations
- 3-day free trial
For web scraping experts based in the Americas, GeoSurf offers excellent performance and targeting. Pricing starts at $10 per GB.
4. Luminati
Quick Facts:
- Founded: 2011
- Headquarters: Israel
- IP Pool: 40+ million
- Users: Retailers, travel companies, researchers
Luminati leverages a P2P model to provide over 40 million residential IPs suitable for web data extraction.
Key features include:
- Automatic and manual IP rotation
- Country-level targeting
- HTTP/HTTPS protocols
- Under 400ms response time
- 99.9% uptime SLA
- Python, Node.js, Java integrations
- 7-day free trial
Luminati also offers configurable sticky sessions to mimic real user behavior. Pricing starts at $10 per GB.
5. Smartproxy
Quick Facts:
- Founded: 2018
- Headquarters: Czechia
- IP Pool: 40+ million
- Users: Retailers, travel companies, data miners
Smartproxy offers a sizable pool of 40+ million residential IPs optimized for web scraping and crawling.
Notable features include:
- City and country-level targeting
- Automatic and manual IP refreshing
- HTTP/HTTPS protocol
- 99.99% uptime SLA
- Under 600ms response time
- Browser extensions for Firefox and Chrome
- 14-day money-back guarantee
Smartproxy provides reliable, secure residential proxies able to handle most web data extraction jobs. Pricing starts at $12.5 per GB.
6. Storm Proxies
Quick Facts:
- Founded: 2019
- Headquarters: Europe
- IP Pool: 70,000+
- Users: Travel companies, data analysts
Storm Proxies offers super-fast residential proxies optimized for travel fare aggregation and price monitoring.
Key highlights include:
- Automatic rotation every 5 mins
- Country-level targeting
- HTTP/HTTPS protocols
- Under 1 sec response time
- 99.9% uptime SLA
- Python, Node.js, C# integrations
- 3-day free trial
With automatic rotation every 5 minutes, Storm Proxies provide great anonymity at scale. Pricing starts at $50 per month.
7. NetNut
Quick Facts:
- Founded: 2017
- Headquarters: UK
- IP Pool: 20+ million
- Users: Travel aggregators, data analysts
NetNut offers over 20 million residential IPs optimized for travel fare aggregation and price monitoring.
Key features include:
- Automatic and manual IP rotation
- City and country-level targeting
- HTTP/HTTPS protocols
- Under 1 sec response time
- 99.9% uptime SLA
- Python, R, Node.js integrations
- 7-day free trial
NetNut provides excellent performance residential proxies able to access popular travel sites and portals. Pricing starts at $15 per GB.
8. Infatica
Quick Facts:
- Founded: 2017
- Headquarters: USA
- IP Pool: 10+ million
- Users: Market researchers, brand monitors
Infatica offers 10+ million residential IPs suitable for market research and social media brand monitoring.
Notable features include:
- Automatic IP rotation
- City and country targeting
- HTTP/SOCKS protocols
- Under 1 sec response time
- 99.9% uptime SLA
- Python, C#, Node.js integrations
- 3-day $1.99 trial
Infatica provides reliable residential proxies able to effectively mimic organic user traffic for stealthy data collection. Pricing starts at $96 per month.
9. Soax
Quick Facts:
- Founded: 2016
- Headquarters: UK
- IP Pool: 5+ million
- Users: Retailers, travel firms, market researchers
Soax operates a sizable residential proxy network with over 5 million IPs catering to web scraping, price monitoring and market research.
Notable features include:
- City-level targeting
- Automatic IP rotation
- HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS5 protocols
- Under 1.2 sec response time
- Python, C#, Java integrations
- 3-day $1.99 trial
For European clients, Soax offers fast residential proxies with precise city-level targeting starting at $99 per month.
10. IPRoyal
Quick Facts:
- Founded: 2017
- Headquarters: Seychelles
- IP Pool: 2+ million
- Users: Digital marketers, social media managers
IPRoyal provides over 2 million residential IPs suitable for digital marketing and social media brand monitoring.
Key capabilities include:
- City and country-level targeting
- Automatic and manual rotation
- HTTP/HTTPS/SOCKS4/5 protocols
- Python, PHP, C# integrations
IPRoyal offers an affordable residential proxy solution for basic needs starting at $7 per GB.
Key Considerations When Choosing a Provider
When picking a residential proxy provider, keep the following criteria in mind:
-
Your use case – Select a provider optimized for your specific needs like web scraping, ad verification or price monitoring.
-
Location targeting required – Choose a provider offering the country, state and city targeting granularity you need.
-
Scale – Pick a network size that matches your data extraction volumes – larger pools allow for more IP rotation flexibility.
-
Performance metrics – Focus on providers with excellent uptime, fast response times, and abundant bandwidth to avoid limitations.
-
Protocols supported – Most providers offer HTTP/HTTPS support. SOCKS5 is also useful for crawling difficult sites.
-
Integrations – If you use web scraping tools like Python and Selenium, check for ready-made proxy integrations.
-
Reviews – Lean towards established providers with positive customer feedback about reliability, support, and results.
-
Pricing model – For variable usage, opt for pay-as-you-go billing over monthly contracts to maximize value.
-
Free trial – Sign up for a trial to gauge performance before committing long-term.
Conclusion
Residential proxies are becoming indispensable tools for market research, competitive analysis, social media management, travel fare aggregation, and web data extraction.
Leading providers like Bright Data, Oxylabs, GeoSurf, and Luminati stand out for their enormous proxy pools, precise geo-targeting, fast response times, high reliability and access to hundreds of millions of residential IPs.
Evaluate your specific use case, required location targeting, scraping tools, and pricing preferences when choosing a suitable residential proxy provider. Leverage the free trials to experience the performance first-hand.
With large-scale residential proxies as part of your web data extraction stack, your business can unlock valuable data, insights and opportunities for growth.