Top 10 Rotating Proxies for Web Scraping Without Limits
Are you looking for the best-rotating proxies to scrape data from the Internet without getting blocked? Then you are on the right page, as the article below recommends some of the best providers for that.
Overview of Top Rotating Proxies for Web Scraping
- Bright Data — Overall Best Rotating Proxies for Web Scraping
- Soax — Cleanest Proxy Pool for Web Scraping
- Smartproxy — Fastest Proxies for Web Scraping
- Proxy-Cheap — Cheap Rotating Proxies for Web Scraping
- IPRoyal — Best for Small Proxy Users
Top Rotating Proxies for Web Scraping
Web scraping entails sending many requests in an automated manner to a website in other to scrape its data. This, to some websites, is seen as abuse, and they track IP addresses to detect and block web scrapers and other kinds of bots. Even if you purchase a few static proxies, it might not work for you. The best option here is to get rotating proxies or, more specifically, rotating residential proxies. These proxies will change IPs for you frequently so you don’t exceed the natural request limits that will earn you a block.
Rotating proxies also have other capabilities that make them perfect for web scraping. Some of these providers support a good number of locations, which makes them perfect for scraping geo-targeted content across multiple countries. There are a good number of providers in the market you can make use of. However, not all of them are worth your money and attention. In this article, I will recommend some of the best providers you can purchase high-quality rotating residential proxies for web scraping.
1. Bright Data — Overall Best Rotating Proxies for Web Scraping
The Bright Data service is our recommended provider for web scraping. And this is not without reasons. Its residential proxy network is a rotating residential proxy network that changes your IP address after every request. While testing it out or web scraping, I recorded the highest number of unique IPs that is put at 80%. This is not surprising, considering it has over 72 million IPs in its pool, making it one of the largest in terms of pool size too.
It IPs are undetectable and gotten via P2P from all countries and regions of the world. Using this, you can use its geo-target feature to choose IPs only from a specific country, which is perfect for scraping geo-targeted content. One thing you will come to like about this service is its performance too. I recorded a download speed of 36.83 Mbps with a response time of 682 ms. With this, you can scrape all kinds of data without wasting time. Pricing is based on bandwidth and starts from $10.50 per GB.
My only major problem with this service is its compulsory KYC requirement for users of its residential proxy network.
Pros & Cons of Bright Data
2. Soax — Cleanest Proxy Pool for Web Scraping
The way rotating proxies work is that they allow you access to their pool of IP addresses. If their IP pool contains a lot of inactive and bad IPs, your web scraping project will be frustrated. With the likes of Soax, you have a provider that regularly checks its pool to remove bad and inactive IPs. The goal here is to keep it clean so the IPs assigned to you will do their work without dropped connections and retries. Currently, Soax has over 5 million IP addresses, and you will be given access to them as a subscriber. This provider is one of the best for web scraping and does have support for over 100 countries for geo-targeting.
In terms of performance, I recorded a download speed of 24.96 Mbps, which is still above the average speed, and the response time is 852 ms. While this service works well for web scraping, you need a minimum of $99 to get started with it, which makes it a service for mid-scale proxy users, and not all small proxy users can afford to spend $99 to get started using a proxy network.
Pros & Cons of Soax
3. Smartproxy — Fastest Proxies for Web Scraping
The Smartproxy service is another provider I will recommend for their rotating residential proxies for web scraping. This network of theirs has proven to be one of the fastest. While testing out all of the providers to write this article, the response time I recorded for it was the fastest at 618 ms. But this is not all, the download speed I recorded was 34.82 Mbps. Its proxies are undetectable as I have used them on some of the most difficult web targets and weren’t blocked. This provider has over 52 million IP addresses in its pool.
In terms of location coverage, there are over 195 countries captured in its list of supported countries from which you can get IPs from. As stated earlier, the proxies offered here are rotating proxies. However, it also allows you to retain an IP address for up to 30 minutes for the sake of session management. With this, you can use it to manage accounts on social media and e-commerce platforms without getting detected and blocked. Pricing for this service is affordable as you can get started from $8.50 per GB.
Pros & Cons of Smartproxy
4. Proxy-Cheap — Cheap Rotating Proxies for Web Scraping
From the name of this provider, you can tell it focuses on pricing. The cost per GB for this service is $5 per GB, which is one of the cheapest you can get in the market, and you can be sure the proxies will get things done. Even though its pricing is cheap, you still get over 6.9 million IP addresses to use, even more than the number of IP addresses offered by Soax. You can choose IPs from over 127 countries.
However, you need to know that because the proxy pool size is medium, if you use the geo-targeting feature, the number of IPs available will become small, and as such, you are better off not making use of its targeting feature except the country you need IPs from is one of the top supported countries they have hundreds of thousands or millions of IP addresses from. In terms of performance, this service is quite average as its download speed, as recorded by me, is 21.84 Mbps with a response time of 795 ms.
Pros & Cons of Proxy-cheap
5. Oxylabs — Largest Proxy Pool for Web Scraping
Oxylabs is one of the premium providers in the same class and level as Bright Data. It has the advantage of having the largest proxy pool in the market, with over 100 million IPs. It also has one of the most extensive location support with all countries and most cities supported. You can use its geo-targeting feature to scrape geo-targeted content. This provider is also one of the services that will change IP for you after every request is sent.
Interestingly, it also has support for session management, allowing you to maintain the same IP address for a long time. In terms of performance, this can be said to be as I recorded an average download speed of 29.47 Mbps with a response time of 671 ms. Pricing for the service is also affordable if you go for their pay-as-you-go pricing option. As with the Bright Data service, Oxylabs requires you to do a KYC before you can use their network, which certainly keeps some people out.
Pros & Cons of Oxylabs
6. IPRoyal — Best for Small Proxy Users
Another provider I recommend is the IPRoyal service. I recommend their rotating residential proxies as some of the best for web scraping. But I won’t recommend them for big players, it is the providers for small proxy users. To start with, it has only 2 million IP addresses in its pool, which is a small number for big projects. However, this number is more than enough for most small proxy users. It also has the added advantage of its bandwidth not expiring, making it perfect for small users who don’t consume all the bandwidth they purchase.
In terms of location support, I can say it supports a little over 100 countries. You have the option of choosing between their high-rotating proxies that change IP randomly or their sticky ports that will maintain the same IP for a period of time. Pricing is quite affordable as you can get started with $7 per GB, and the more bandwidth you pay for, the cheaper the price per GB becomes.
Pros & Cons of IPRoyal
7. ASocks — Cheapest Rotating Proxies for Web Scraping
If you are on a low budget, then the ASocks service is the right provider for you. You won’t get all of the advanced and fact features you get from the likes of Bright Data and Smartproxy. But you will get a rotating proxy network that works for web scraping. To start with, it has over 7 million IP addresses in its pool, which is quite sizeable. It does have support for a good number of locations across the globe.
The proxies are rotating proxies. In terms of performance, I recorded an average speed of 18.95 Mbps, which is just average but will still complete your tasks. Even though it does not measure with the other top providers in terms of speed, it is quite good when it comes to being undetectable. Remember, it is not the best service for you if you need to choose IPs from a specific country, as the pool for specific locations can be small depending on your chosen location. Pricing for the service starts from $3 per GB.
Pros & Cons of ASocks
8. ProxyEmpire — Reliable with Bandwidth Rollover Support
The ProxyEmpire service is one mid-scale provider I have a missed feeling for. First, it is a reliable service, has a clean proxy pool, and offers undetectable proxies. Web scraping is the major use case of their proxies, and their network rotates IPs intelligently to increase the chances of your requests going through without issues. In terms of performance, it is also good, as I recorded an average download speed of 27.84 Mbps with a response rate of 794 ms. Surprisingly, it scales well.
The service currently has over 5 million IP addresses sourced from over 100 countries across the globe. However, its pricing has refused to become cheaper even when big players like Bright Data and Smartproxy have reduced prices. It has the added advantage of supporting bandwidth rollover, though, which is also a good one.
Pros & Cons of ProxyEmpire
9. Hydraproxy — Support Endless Proxy Endpoint Generation
The Hydraproxy service comes with one unique offering — the ability to generate as many proxy endpoints as you want at no extra cost. This means that if your web scraper is multithreaded, you can provide each thread with a different proxy endpoint; all of these will have their own IP address and session. This makes it even more difficult to detect. The network has over 5 million IP addresses, making it perfect for small to mid-scale web scraping projects.
As with ProxyEmpire, there are over 100 countries from which you can choose IPs from. This service does not have support for city-level targeting. Also, its performance can be said to be average, as I recorded an average download speed of 23.95 Mbps with a response time of 728 ms. This is enough to get most projects going, considering its pricing is one of the cheapest out there. You can get started with this service at $5 per GB monthly.
Pros & Cons of Hydraproxy
10. PrivateProxy.Me — Best Datacenter Rotating Proxies for Web Scraping
All of the providers mentioned above are residential proxies, and they are currently the de facto proxies for web scraping because of their undetectable nature. However, if your target site is not hard on datacenter IPs, you can use privateProxy.Me. This provider is one of the few datacenter proxy networks that offer high-quality rotating datacenter proxies. They have thousands of datacenter proxies you can use at great prices.
One advantage of using their proxies as opposed to using rotating residential proxies described above is speed. While testing the performance, I recorded an average download speed of 62.72 Mbps with a response time of 326 ms. This is unsurprising as the average datacenter proxy is faster than the average residential proxy. However, it is easily detected and, as such, should only be used for soft web targets. Pricing for this service is not cheaper either, as you need $59 to get started.
Pros & Cons of PrivateProxy
FAQs
Q. Why Use Rotating Proxies for Web Scraping?
Website track IP addresses. Using this, they could determine whether a human or a bot is operating a client. There is a natural number of requests you can send within a short period, which differs from website to website. If you exceed this, your IP address gets blocked. This applies even if you use a proxy, provided it is a static proxy. Rotating proxies changes your IP addresses so that your multiple requests don’t come from the same IP address, and by doing this, you hide your IP footprint from detection.
Q. Are Rotating Proxies Foolproof?
By design, they are meant to be foolproof. But that depends on the provider at hand, your project's size, and your provider's IP pool. If a provider changes your IP after every request, it becomes difficult for a website to pin them down to you. But if a rotating proxy has to wait 5 minutes to change your IP address, you could exceed the request limits before the 5 minutes elapse and get you blocked. You need to look at your specific project requirements to choose the best for you. But generally, the larger the number of available IPs in a pool, the higher the chances of getting unique IPs assigned to you.
Q. What are the Best Rotating Proxies for Web Scraping?
Based on experience, rotating residential proxies are the best proxies for web scraping because of their undetectable nature. The larger the number of available IPs in a pool, the better for you, as you can get more unique IPs. For this reason, I will recommend Bright Data as the number one provider. But it does one one problem, and that is its compulsory KYC requirement. Smartproxy is the next most recommended option if you aren't comfortable with that. For those with a tight budget, I recommend Proxy-cheap or Hydraproxy.
Conclusion
The above providers are just a few rotating residential proxies you can use to scrape data from websites on the Internet. There are many more unmentioned. However, this is a list of providers we have tested and have proven to work. If you choose from the list above, you can be sure you choose from a list of providers that work.
