Rotating proxies are essential for web scraping, allowing users to access the internet anonymously and bypass IP bans. They can help you scrape data from multiple websites quickly and efficiently.
However, with so many different proxy options available on the market, it can take time to pick the best one for your specific needs. That's why this article will take a deep dive into rotating proxies — explaining how they work and exploring their benefits — before reviewing some of the top proxy services out there today. Read on to learn more about rotating proxies and find out which ones are best suited for your web scraping projects!
What are rotating and residential proxies?
Let's start by understanding what rotating proxies are and how they work. Essentially, these types of proxy servers switch the IP address used with each request. This means that instead of one static IP address being used for all requests, a rotating proxy will provide a new IP address after every request, a certain number of requests, or when a set amount of time has passed.
There are three main types of rotating proxies: residential, datacenter, and mobile. Residential proxies use IP addresses assigned by internet service providers to real residential addresses, making them harder to detect and block by websites. However, such proxies are very slow and quite expensive.
Datacenter proxies, on the other hand, use IP addresses provided by datacenters. Although they are faster and cheaper than resident proxies, they are less desirable for scraping. Unfortunately, they are easily recognized by websites and are often blocked.
Mobile proxies use IP addresses derived from mobile devices, allowing users to access mobile-only content. This also entails an increased cost, which makes it reasonable to use this type only in special cases where the necessary data cannot be obtained any other way.
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Why use rotating proxies for web scraping?
The advantages of using rotating proxies for web scraping are obvious. By rotating the IP addresses used to make requests, you can successfully avoid IP blocking and speed limits that can prevent a scraper from accessing the data you want. Using rotating proxies also makes it harder for websites to identify who is doing the scraping, reducing their capacity to block access based on IP address.
Rotating proxies are typically used from different countries, allowing you to bypass geo-restrictions. This can be useful for collecting information that may only be available within a specific region or country. It can also be useful for SEO analysis of different resources, such as Google SERPs.
Choosing Rotating Proxies: Main Criteria
When it comes to protecting your online identity and privacy, selecting the right rotating proxies is essential. Rotating proxies are an effective way of masking your IP address, avoiding online tracking, and bypassing geo-restrictions. With so many options, deciding which is best can take time and effort. That's why it makes sense to consider various factors when choosing a rotating proxy service.
Speed and reliability
The speed and reliability of the proxy provider are essential for efficient and effective web scraping. Slow proxies or proxies that frequently fail can lead to data loss and wasted resources.
Geolocation
If the data is location-specific, such as local search results or real estate listings, it may be necessary to use proxy lists in specific regions or countries for geotargeting. Ensure that the proxy provider offers servers in the location you need.
Pricing
Pricing is another important factor to consider when choosing a rotating proxy provider. Some providers may offer cheaper proxies but with lower quality or limited features. It's essential to find a provider that offers a balance between affordability and quality.
Security and privacy
Pay attention to privacy and security guarantees when choosing a proxy provider. If you choose an insufficiently reliable provider, your data may be shared with third parties, or your confidential information may be exposed.
Customer support
Finally, good customer support can be invaluable when using rotating proxies for web scraping. A provider that offers responsive and helpful customer support can help resolve any issues that may arise during the scraping process.
Top rotating proxy providers
We have already written about the best free proxies for web scraping, but now we will look at the top ten proxy providers among paid and free services. Below is a list of top rotating proxy providers that will provide secure and reliable services.
HasData
HasData is a fast and efficient web scraping API that allows you to focus on the data you want without fear of being blocked or getting CAPTCHAs. We offer automatic proxy rotation, automatic scaling, unlimited bandwidth, lightning speed, fast integration, and supporting headless browsers for reliable web scraping results, even in dynamic environments.
Our API can be used for many different purposes, such as collecting customer reviews, pricing, and product information from e-commerce sites, job postings and hiring data, sales leads, or even real estate data.
We offer a free trial plan so you can try out our services before making a decision. We also have flexible pricing plans that scale with your business needs.
At the end of the article, we will present a table comparing what is more profitable to use for web scraping - rotating proxies or our API.
Now let's look at the advantages and disadvantages of using HasData:
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Have residential and datacenter proxies | Have no mobile proxies |
| Ongoing support | |
| Fast-acting | |
| Affordable pricing | |
| Unlimited bandwidth | |
| Follows full legal compliance |
You can try the service for free after signing up. Paid plans start at $30/month. We also offer an alternative “Pay As You Go” option for customers who want to pay only for what they use. This is an excellent option for those who only need occasional use of our service or want more flexibility in their payment plan.
Oxylabs
Oxylabs is a well-known proxy service provider that offers residential and datacenter proxies. Its pool has over 100 million residential IP addresses, ensuring a high success rate for web scraping and other online activities.
It offers a variety of features, such as city and country-level targeting, rotating proxies, session control, and custom user agents. Oxylabs has a reputation for providing fast and reliable proxy service.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| The large pool of IP addresses | May be relatively expensive compared to other providers |
| High rotation frequency | May not have as many location options as some other providers |
| User-friendly dashboard | No free trial option |
| Multiple authentication methods | No refund policy |
| 24/7 customer support |
Subscriptions start from $340 per month for 20 Gb.
Netnut
NetNut offers a variety of powerful features and benefits that make it a strong choice for those needing residential or datacenter proxies. However, there may be better fits for some, particularly those requiring extensive geographic coverage or looking for the lowest possible pricing.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Multiple types of proxies available (rotating, static, mobile, datacenter) | Relatively expensive pricing compared to some competitors |
| Optimized for web scraping | The service's free trial offer is limited in time |
| More than 52 million premium IP addresses | Limited geographic coverage compared to competitors |
| Fastest residential proxy network | Some customers may prefer more established providers |
| Instant anonymous web data scraping | |
| 24/7 customer support |
The minimum plan on NetNut includes 20 Gb of traffic for $300 a month.
Proxyrack
Proxyrack provides customers with reliable, fast, and quality proxies that can be used for scraping web pages or data extraction. Customers can buy HTTP, SOCKS 5 & UDP proxies to target specific countries, cities, ISPs, and more.
The service offers residential and data center proxies with unlimited monthly data transfers and real IP addresses from 140+ locations. The service comes with live reporting on the customer's dashboard, allowing you to troubleshoot any issues quickly. The service offers a 7-day trial so customers can try out the service before purchasing a full plan.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Provides a large pool of IPs from over 140+ countries, plus target city and ISP. | The service may be expensive for some users. |
| Provides a 7-day trial and guarantee for all their proxy IPs | The trial period may not be enough for some users to evaluate the service fully |
| Allows for rotating or sticky ports | Some users may not need the full range of features provided by ProxyRack |
| Provides live reporting in the user dashboard, allowing for easy troubleshooting | The support team is relatively small and could be slow to respond. |
Proxy rank offers two subscription options - per port and per traffic volume. The minimum subscription price is $49.96 monthly for 10 Gb of traffic or $65.95 monthly for 5 ports.
BrightData (formerly Luminati)
BrightData is a residential proxy network that offers users access to millions of IPs from 195 countries. It provides unlimited concurrent requests and scalability, 24/7 support, and data protection compliance with GDPR and CCPA standards. This service is used for data collection, market research, SEO monitoring, e-commerce analysis, ad tech tracking, and more. There are a variety of pricing plans, including pay-per-use, monthly or annual subscriptions with discounts for extended plans.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Fast residential proxy network | City-level targeting and dedicated IP addresses require additional cost |
| 72+ million IPs | |
| Free trial available | |
| Compliance with data protection laws, including GDPR and CCPA |
You can try a pay-per-use subscription for $15.00/GB or buy a monthly subscription starting at $500 ($12.75/GB).
SmartProxy
Smartproxy is a proxy network solution that helps users access websites worldwide, maintain privacy and anonymity online, and avoid geo-restrictions, firewalls, and bans. Smartproxy provides proxies of three types:
- Proxies look like real mobile or desktop devices to target servers.
- Virtual IP addresses created in powerful server hubs.
- Anonymous and transparent proxies.
Smartproxy offers speed and security by hiding sensitive information from potential threats.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Offers proxies and scraping API calls | Shared proxy pools may increase the risk of getting blocked |
| Provides residential, datacenter, and private datacenter proxies | No information about customer support or service guarantees |
You can try a pay-per-use subscription for $12.50/GB or buy a monthly subscription starting at $80 ($8/GB).
GeoSurf
GeoSurf is a service that provides high-quality proxies so users can scrape and crawl any website without getting detected or blocked. They have a pool of 3.7 million IP addresses in over 2000 locations across 130 countries, offering residential IPs, static residential IPs, mobile VPNs, data collection APIs, desktop VPNs, direct connect private proxies, and more for use cases such as ad verification, sales intelligence, and SEO proxy servers. Their pricing packages are designed to fit different needs, and they also offer dedicated customer support.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Simple and quick integration | Some pricing plans can be expensive |
| Reliable proxies | No free trial |
| Premium support is available 24/7 | No SOCKS proxy support |
| The large pool of over 3.7 million IP addresses in every country and +1,700 cities | |
| Stable connections |
The minimum plan costs $300 and includes 25 GB of traffic. For each additional GB, you have to pay $12 extra.
Shifter
Shifter is a data collection service provider that makes it easy for start-ups and leading companies of the world to collect and manage data. Their product suite includes data center and residential proxies, APIs for web scraping projects and search engine data gathering, and cloud infrastructure services. Their features include high uptime, fast speed, 24/7 customer support, high success rates, global coverage, developer-friendly features, and easy configurations.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Developer-friendly with dedicated features and friendly SDKs | Costly for large-scale usage |
| Established industry experience of over ten years | No free trial or usage available for new users |
| Provides a range of products and services, including rotating residential proxies, static residential proxies, and web scraping APIs |
Subscriptions start at $199.99 for 5 rotating IPs.
Zyte (formerly Crawlera)
Zyte Smart Proxy Manager is a service designed to make it easy to access open data from across the world. It provides millions of proxies from different locations for effortless data gathering. You only pay for successful requests delivered, so you don't have to worry about paying for underused IPs or engineer hours to monitor and rotate your proxies. Zyte Smart Proxy Manager offers a 14-day free trial (up to 10K requests) with a credit card required for additional requests at $49 per 100k.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Pay only for successful requests | A credit card is required for a free trial |
| Automatic healthy IP selection & rotation | Additional requests incur a cost after the free trial ends |
| Anti-ban management |
Subscriptions start from $99 per month for 100K successful requests.
Stormproxies
StormProxies is a service that provides customers with rotating backconnect proxies, dedicated IPs rotating proxies, residential IPs rotating proxies, general private dedicated proxies, premium proxies, and proxies for scraping social media. Customers can access the service with unlimited bandwidth instantly after payment.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| Unlimited bandwidth with no hidden costs or limits | No socks proxies provided |
| 24 Hours Money-Back Guarantee to test proxies risk-free | The refund policy only applies to the smallest package of each proxy type |
| Dedicated and residential IPs |
Subscriptions start at $50 for one rotating proxy.
Best practices when using rotating proxies
In addition to these top rotating proxy providers, it's also essential to keep in mind some best practices when using rotating proxies for web scraping. Here are a few tips:
- Before using any proxy, test it to ensure it's working correctly and won't be blocked by the website you're scraping.
- Be courteous and do not use proxies for purposes they do not allow. Some sites and proxy providers may not allow scraping or using their proxies for scraping.
- Keep track of your proxy usage. Some sites may have limits on how often their data can be accessed, so it is important to stay within these limits to avoid being blocked.
- Consider utilizing multiple proxies at once; this will help spread out requests and reduce the chance of being blocked by sites.
By following these tips and choosing a reliable provider for rotating proxies, you can get the maximum benefit from web scraping with minimal risk.
Conclusion and Takeaways
Rotating proxies can be an invaluable tool for web scraping, allowing businesses and organizations to access and collect data from websites without being blocked or detected. When choosing a rotating proxy provider, it's important to consider factors such as speed, reliability, location, pricing, and customer support and to choose a provider that best fits your specific needs.
Let's compare all the services considered. Let's assume that we need a monthly subscription and about 200 Gb of traffic to make it easier to compare the data.
Given providers' various service rates, let's look at this research. It surveyed over a billion web pages and concluded that an average webpage weighs 2MB. That means if you're making 100,000 requests of 2MB each, you're looking at roughly 200GB of traffic.
| Service Name | Geolocation | Success rate | Subscription Price | Request/Traffic Limit/Proxies Amount |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| HasData | >100 | 100% | $90 | 100,000 requests |
| Oxylabs | N/A | 98% | $2200 | 200 Gb |
| Netnut | N/A | 99% | $1600 | 200 Gb |
| Proxyrack | >140 | 97% | $599.95 | 200 Gb |
| BrightData (formerly Luminati) | 195 | 99% | $500 | Not limited |
| SmartProxy | N/A | 97% | $1400 | 200 Gb |
| GeoSurf | 130 | 96% | $1600 | 200 Gb |
| Shifter | N/A | 99% | $199.99 | 5 ports |
| Zyte (formerly Crawlera) | N/A | 100% | $99 | 100,000 requests |
| Stormproxies | >100 | 94% | $160 | 20 port |
By using one of the best rotating proxy services on our list and following best practices for web scraping, you'll be able to access the data needed to make informed decisions and stay ahead of your competition.
However, using proxies for scraping can be expensive. You'll need more than just the proxy itself to make it work effectively, such as captcha-solving services, a separate server, and other costs. To ensure you get your money's worth, consider using specialized scraping services that provide proxies and additional features in one package.
Rotating proxies are an excellent way to power up your web scraping efforts, allowing you to gain valuable insights into what makes competitors tick in this data-driven world. With a reliable proxy service provider and good practices in place, web scraping can be a powerful tool for any organization aiming for success.
