The 6 best proxies for web scraping in 2026

Web scraping without proxies in 2026 is like trying to walk into a bank vault without a key. You're not getting anywhere.

Modern websites have leveled up their anti-bot defenses. They track browser fingerprints, analyze mouse movements, inspect TLS signatures, and flag suspicious IP patterns in milliseconds.

The result? Your scraper gets blocked before it finishes loading the page.

The Main Difference Between Residential and Datacenter Proxies

The main difference between residential and datacenter proxies is trust level and detection risk. Residential proxies use real IP addresses from Internet Service Providers, making requests appear as genuine home users. Datacenter proxies come from cloud servers, offering faster speeds but higher detection rates. For web scraping in 2026, residential proxies deliver 95%+ success rates on protected sites, while datacenter proxies work best for speed-focused tasks on less guarded targets.

This guide breaks down the six best proxies for web scraping in 2026. You'll learn what separates the top providers, which proxy types work for different scraping jobs, and how to pick the right solution for your specific use case.

The 6 Best Proxies for Web Scraping in 2026 at a Glance

Why Proxies Matter for Web Scraping in 2026

Websites in 2026 don't just check your IP address anymore. They analyze dozens of signals to determine if a visitor is human.

Here's what anti-bot systems look for:

IP fingerprinting detects unusual traffic patterns from a single address. Send too many requests from one IP, and you're flagged within seconds.

Browser fingerprinting tracks your screen size, fonts, timezone, and even GPU configuration. These details create a unique signature that follows you across requests.

TLS fingerprinting examines SSL handshake metadata. Automation tools like Python's requests library or headless browsers leave distinct signatures that sophisticated systems catch instantly.

Behavioral analysis monitors mouse movements, scroll speed, and click patterns. Bots that jump straight to data extraction skip the natural browsing behavior real users exhibit.

Rate limiting blocks requests that exceed human-realistic speeds. Even with rotating IPs, sending 100 requests per second raises red flags.

Without proper proxies for web scraping, you'll face CAPTCHAs on every request, empty responses, or outright IP bans. The right proxy infrastructure masks your identity, distributes requests naturally, and mimics legitimate user behavior at scale.

Types of Proxies for Web Scraping

Not all proxies work equally well for scraping. Understanding the different types helps you match the right tool to your specific target sites.

Residential Proxies

Residential proxies route traffic through real IP addresses assigned by Internet Service Providers to home users. Websites trust these IPs because they look identical to regular consumer traffic.

Best for: Heavily protected sites like Amazon, Google, and social platforms.

Pros:

• Highest trust scores and success rates
• Access to geo-restricted content
• Difficult for anti-bot systems to detect

Cons:

• Slower than datacenter proxies
• Higher cost per GB
• Speed varies based on the residential connection

Datacenter Proxies

Datacenter proxies come from cloud servers rather than residential addresses. They offer faster speeds and lower costs but carry higher detection risk.

Best for: Less protected sites, high-speed scraping, and cost-sensitive projects.

Pros:

• Fast response times
• Lower price per request
• Stable performance under heavy load

Cons:

• Easier to detect and block
• Many sites flag datacenter IP ranges
• Limited effectiveness on protected targets

ISP Proxies (Static Residential)

ISP proxies combine residential-level trust with datacenter-like stability. They're registered to Internet Service Providers but hosted in data centers.

Best for: Long sessions, account management, and tasks requiring consistent IPs.

Pros:

• High trust scores like residential IPs
• Faster and more reliable than rotating residential
• Work well for login-required scraping

Cons:

• More expensive than datacenter proxies
• Limited availability compared to rotating pools
• Require careful IP management

Mobile Proxies

Mobile proxies use IP addresses from cellular networks. They carry the highest trust levels because mobile carriers frequently rotate IPs among users naturally.

Best for: Social media scraping, mobile-specific content, and the most protected sites.

Pros:

• Highest trust scores available
• Natural IP rotation built into mobile networks
• Effective against aggressive anti-bot systems

Cons:

• Most expensive option
• Slower connection speeds
• Limited geographic targeting options

The 6 Best Proxies for Web Scraping in 2026

1. Roundproxies — Best All-Purpose Solution

Roundproxies offers a balanced mix of residential, datacenter, ISP, and mobile proxies suitable for most web scraping projects in 2026.

Key Specs:

• IP Pool: 50M+ residential IPs across 190+ countries
• Proxy Types: Residential, Datacenter, ISP, Mobile
• Rotation: Per-request or sticky sessions up to 30 minutes
• Protocols: HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS5
• Starting Price: $3/GB for residential

What Makes It Stand Out:

Roundproxies maintains a clean IP pool through strict usage policies. Their residential network pulls from ethically sourced devices with proper consent documentation.

The dashboard provides real-time stats on request success rates, bandwidth usage, and geographic distribution. You can monitor which targets perform well and adjust your proxy configuration without switching to another provider.

Their datacenter proxies cover 18+ locations with dedicated options for users who need consistent IPs. The ISP proxies blend residential trust with datacenter speed—useful for scraping sites that block obvious datacenter ranges but don't require full residential coverage.

Pricing Structure:

• Residential: $3/GB with pay-as-you-go option
• Datacenter: Starting at $2.50 for 100 IPs
• ISP: Starting at $3.50/GB
• Mobile: Starting at $12/GB

Best For: Teams that need flexibility across different proxy types without managing multiple provider accounts. Works well for ecommerce monitoring, SERP tracking, and general data collection.

2. Oxylabs — Best for Enterprise Operations

Oxylabs runs one of the largest proxy networks in the industry, with infrastructure built for high-volume enterprise scraping.

Key Specs:

• IP Pool: 175M+ residential, 2M datacenter
• Locations: 195+ countries with city-level targeting
• Rotation: Per request or sessions up to 24 hours
• Support: 24/7 with dedicated account managers
• Starting Price: $4/GB residential, $0.59/GB datacenter

What Makes It Stand Out:

Oxylabs integrates AI into their scraping tools. Their Web Scraper API handles JavaScript rendering, CAPTCHA solving, and automatic retries without requiring custom code.

The OxyCopilot feature generates scraping configurations from natural language prompts. Describe what you want to extract, and it builds the request parameters automatically.

For proxies for web scraping at enterprise scale, Oxylabs delivers consistent 99.9% uptime and success rates above 99% on most targets. Their dedicated account managers help optimize configurations for specific use cases.

Pricing Structure:

• Residential: From $4/GB with volume discounts
• Datacenter: $0.59/GB or $11.80/20GB
• ISP: Custom pricing
• Enterprise: Custom quotes with SLAs

Best For: Large organizations running millions of requests monthly. Ideal for companies needing premium support, guaranteed SLAs, and advanced automation tools.

3. Bright Data — Best for Complex Targets

Bright Data (formerly Luminati) pioneered the residential proxy market and continues to offer one of the most feature-rich platforms available.

Key Specs:

• IP Pool: 150M+ across all proxy types
• Locations: 195 countries with ASN targeting
• Tools: Proxy Manager, Web Unlocker, Scraping Browser
• Compliance: SOC 2 certified, GDPR compliant
• Starting Price: $4/GB residential

What Makes It Stand Out:

The open-source Proxy Manager gives granular control over request routing. You can set custom rules for specific domains, manage sessions programmatically, and monitor performance in real time.

Web Unlocker handles anti-bot challenges automatically. It rotates IPs, solves CAPTCHAs, and manages browser fingerprints so your scraper receives clean HTML.

Bright Data also offers ready-to-use datasets for common scraping targets. If you need Amazon product data, Google SERP results, or LinkedIn profiles, their pre-built collectors might save development time.

Pricing Structure:

• Residential: $4/GB with pay-as-you-go
• Datacenter: $1.40/IP dedicated
• Web Unlocker: $3/1,000 requests
• Data Collector: Varies by target

Best For: Technical teams scraping heavily protected sites. Works well when you need maximum control over proxy behavior and don't mind a steeper learning curve.

4. SOAX — Best for Flexible Geo-Targeting

SOAX has grown from a smaller player into a legitimate competitor with strong filtering options and competitive pricing.

Key Specs:

• IP Pool: 155M+ residential IPs
• Locations: 195+ countries
• Targeting: Country, city, ASN, and ISP level
• Rotation: Per request or 90-600 second sessions
• Starting Price: $3.60/GB residential

What Makes It Stand Out:

SOAX lets you filter IPs by ASN, which is useful when you need to mimic traffic from specific internet providers. Some scraping targets treat different ISPs differently—this targeting helps you test and optimize.

Every paid plan includes access to residential, mobile, and datacenter proxies. You don't need separate subscriptions to switch between proxy types as your requirements change.

The Web Data API bundles anti-detection features into a single endpoint. Send a URL, and it handles rendering, fingerprint spoofing, and retry logic automatically.

Pricing Structure:

• Residential: $3.60/GB starting at 25GB
• Datacenter: $2/GB starting at 45GB
• Mobile: Included with residential plans
• Trial: $1.99 for 3 days

Best For: Scrapers who need precise geographic or ISP targeting. Good choice for ad verification, price monitoring across regions, and localized content extraction.

5. NetNut — Best for Large-Scale Projects

NetNut sources IPs directly from ISPs rather than through peer-to-peer networks. This approach provides stable connections with residential-level trust.

Key Specs:

• IP Pool: 85M+ residential, 150K datacenter
• Locations: 200+ countries
• Targeting: Country, city, and ASN
• Session Length: As long as the IP remains available
• Starting Price: $3.53/GB at 28GB minimum

What Makes It Stand Out:

NetNut's direct ISP connections mean lower latency than typical residential proxies. Requests route through telecom infrastructure rather than individual home devices.

Their Website Unblocker handles anti-bot challenges at the API level. You send requests to their endpoint, and it returns rendered HTML with JavaScript executed.

The pricing structure favors high-volume users. Costs drop significantly at larger tiers, making NetNut competitive for teams processing millions of requests monthly.

Pricing Structure:

• Residential: $3.53/GB at 28GB minimum
• Datacenter: $1/GB at 100GB minimum
• ISP: Custom pricing
• Enterprise: Volume discounts available

Best For: High-volume operations where consistent performance matters more than rock-bottom pricing. Works well for real-time monitoring and large-scale data collection.

6. IPRoyal — Best Budget Option

IPRoyal offers competitive pricing without sacrificing essential features. Their residential pool is smaller than premium providers but sufficient for many scraping projects.

Key Specs:

• IP Pool: 32M+ residential IPs
• Locations: 195 countries
• Rotation: Per request or 1-24 hour sticky sessions
• Traffic: Non-expiring bandwidth
• Starting Price: $1.75/GB residential

What Makes It Stand Out:

IPRoyal's traffic doesn't expire. Unused bandwidth rolls over indefinitely, which helps budget-conscious teams avoid waste.

The dashboard includes a browser extension for quick IP testing. You can verify proxies work on specific targets before committing bandwidth to automated scrapers.

Their datacenter proxies start at $2 per IP with dedicated options available. For projects that don't require residential-level trust, the cost savings add up quickly.

Pricing Structure:

• Residential: $1.75/GB with non-expiring traffic
• Datacenter: $2/proxy dedicated
• ISP: $2/proxy
• Mobile: Custom pricing

Best For: Startups, individual developers, and projects with limited budgets. Works well for lighter scraping needs and testing new targets before scaling up.

How to Choose the Right Proxy for Your Scraping Project

Picking the right proxies for web scraping depends on three main factors: your target sites, your volume requirements, and your budget.

Match Proxy Type to Target Difficulty

Easy targets (blogs, news sites, public APIs): Datacenter proxies work fine. They're fast and cheap.

Medium targets (ecommerce, review sites, job boards): Residential proxies provide necessary anonymity. Expect 90%+ success rates with proper rotation.

Hard targets (Amazon, Google, social platforms): Use residential or mobile proxies with anti-detection tools. Build in retry logic and session management.

Calculate Your True Costs

Don't just compare per-GB rates. Factor in:

• Success rate differences (a 90% success rate means 10% wasted bandwidth)
• Retry overhead for failed requests
• Support costs when something breaks
• Integration time for complex APIs

A $4/GB proxy with 99% success often costs less than a $2/GB proxy with 80% success.

Start Small, Then Scale

Most providers offer trials or small starter plans. Test your specific targets before committing to large packages.

Run 1,000 requests against your target sites. Measure success rates, response times, and data quality. Then extrapolate to estimate costs at your production volume.

Setting Up Proxies for Web Scraping in Python

Here's a practical example using Python's requests library with rotating residential proxies:

import requests
from itertools import cycle

# Your proxy credentials
PROXY_USER = "your_username"
PROXY_PASS = "your_password"
PROXY_HOST = "proxy.example.com"
PROXY_PORT = "10000"

# Configure proxy URL
proxy_url = f"http://{PROXY_USER}:{PROXY_PASS}@{PROXY_HOST}:{PROXY_PORT}"

proxies = {
    "http": proxy_url,
    "https": proxy_url
}

def scrape_with_proxy(url):
    """Send request through rotating proxy."""
    try:
        response = requests.get(
            url,
            proxies=proxies,
            timeout=30
        )
        response.raise_for_status()
        return response.text
    except requests.exceptions.RequestException as e:
        print(f"Request failed: {e}")
        return None

This basic setup works for most providers. The proxy server handles IP rotation automatically—each request routes through a different residential IP.

For tougher targets, add headers that mimic real browsers:

headers = {
    "User-Agent": "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36",
    "Accept": "text/html,application/xhtml+xml,application/xml;q=0.9,*/*;q=0.8",
    "Accept-Language": "en-US,en;q=0.5",
    "Accept-Encoding": "gzip, deflate, br",
    "Connection": "keep-alive",
}

response = requests.get(url, proxies=proxies, headers=headers, timeout=30)

For JavaScript-heavy sites, switch to a headless browser with proxy support:

from playwright.sync_api import sync_playwright

def scrape_with_browser(url):
    """Use Playwright with proxy for JS-rendered content."""
    with sync_playwright() as p:
        browser = p.chromium.launch(
            proxy={
                "server": f"http://{PROXY_HOST}:{PROXY_PORT}",
                "username": PROXY_USER,
                "password": PROXY_PASS
            }
        )
        page = browser.new_page()
        page.goto(url, wait_until="networkidle")
        content = page.content()
        browser.close()
        return content

This approach executes JavaScript, waits for dynamic content to load, and captures the fully rendered HTML. The proxy masks your real IP while the browser mimics human interaction patterns.

Common Proxy Mistakes to Avoid

Even the best proxies for web scraping fail when configured poorly. Here are mistakes that tank success rates:

Sending requests too fast. Real humans don't load 100 pages per second. Add random delays between requests—2-5 seconds works for most targets.

Using the same User-Agent repeatedly. Rotate through a list of real browser strings. Sending 10,000 requests with identical headers screams "bot."

Ignoring session management. Some sites require consistent IPs for multi-page workflows. Use sticky sessions for login flows, shopping carts, and paginated results.

Skipping retry logic. Individual requests fail for random reasons. Build in automatic retries with exponential backoff instead of treating every failure as terminal.

Forgetting geographic consistency. Don't mix IPs from different countries within a single session. A user browsing from Germany doesn't suddenly switch to Brazilian IPs mid-checkout.

What's New for Web Scraping Proxies in 2026

The proxy landscape keeps evolving as websites improve their defenses. Here's what's shaping the market:

AI-powered anti-detection is becoming standard. Providers like Oxylabs and Bright Data now offer tools that automatically adapt to target site behaviors rather than relying on static configurations.

Browser-based scraping is replacing simple HTTP requests for many targets. Proxy providers are adding integrated browser solutions that handle fingerprinting, JavaScript execution, and CAPTCHA solving in single API calls.

Ethical sourcing is getting more attention. Regulatory scrutiny has pushed major providers toward transparent consent models. When evaluating proxies for web scraping, check how providers source their residential IPs.

ISP proxies are gaining popularity as a middle ground between residential trust and datacenter speed. Expect more providers to expand their ISP offerings in 2026.

Conclusion

Choosing the right proxies for web scraping in 2026 comes down to matching your needs to provider strengths.

For all-purpose scraping with flexible proxy types, Roundproxies offers solid performance across residential, datacenter, and mobile options. Enterprise teams running millions of requests should look at Oxylabs for premium support and AI-powered tools.

Bright Data remains the feature leader for complex targets, while SOAX stands out for precise geo-targeting needs. NetNut delivers consistent performance at scale, and IPRoyal provides the best value for budget-conscious projects.

Start with a trial on your specific target sites. Measure success rates, response times, and total costs before scaling up. The best proxy is the one that delivers clean data from your targets at a price that works for your project.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are free proxies good for web scraping?

Free proxies fail for serious scraping work. They offer slow speeds, unreliable connections, and IPs that most sites have already blocked. The time wasted dealing with failures costs more than paying for quality proxies.

How many requests can I send per second with proxies?

It depends on your proxy type and target site. Datacenter proxies handle 50-100+ requests per second. Residential proxies typically work best at 10-30 requests per second to maintain natural traffic patterns.

Do I need residential proxies for all scraping?

No. Datacenter proxies work fine for unprotected sites, public APIs, and less demanding targets. Use residential proxies when you encounter blocks, CAPTCHAs, or empty responses with datacenter IPs.

What's the difference between rotating and sticky sessions?

Rotating proxies assign a new IP for each request. Sticky sessions maintain the same IP for a set duration—useful for login flows, shopping carts, and multi-page navigation where sites track IP consistency.

Can websites still detect me with premium proxies?

Yes, if your scraping behavior looks robotic. Proxies mask your IP, but websites also analyze request timing, browser fingerprints, and interaction patterns. Combine quality proxies with realistic scraping behavior for best results.