Webshare built a solid proxy service — cheap datacenter IPs, a clean dashboard, and a free tier that actually works. But after Oxylabs acquired them in 2024, the cracks have gotten harder to ignore.
No mobile proxies. Country-only targeting with no city or state precision. A "fair usage policy" that throttles your "unlimited" bandwidth after 10TB. And accounts getting suspended mid-project for automated ID verification checks.
If any of that sounds familiar, here are seven providers worth testing.
What Are the Best Webshare Alternatives?
The best Webshare alternatives are proxy providers that offer mobile proxy support, city-level geo-targeting, and flexible bandwidth policies — three areas where Webshare falls short. Top options include Roundproxies for all-around scraping, Bright Data for enterprise scale, and Smartproxy (Decodo) for budget residential proxies. The right choice depends on your proxy type requirements, targeting precision, and monthly bandwidth patterns.
Quick Comparison
| Provider | Best For | Proxy Types | Starting Price | Free Trial? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Roundproxies | Web scraping at scale | Residential, Datacenter, ISP, Mobile | $2.10/GB residential | Yes (500MB / 24hr) |
| Bright Data | Enterprise data pipelines | Residential, Datacenter, ISP, Mobile | $8.40/GB residential | 7-day (business) |
| Smartproxy (Decodo) | Budget residential proxies | Residential, Datacenter, ISP, Mobile | $3.50/GB residential | 100MB free test |
| IPRoyal | Non-expiring traffic | Residential, Datacenter, ISP, Mobile | $1.75/GB residential | No |
| SOAX | Precise geo-targeting | Residential, Datacenter, ISP, Mobile | $4.00/GB residential | $1.99 trial |
Why Look Beyond Webshare?
What Webshare Gets Right
Credit where it's due. Webshare's datacenter proxies are some of the cheapest on the market — $0.05/IP at volume with unlimited bandwidth on higher-tier plans. Their 80M+ rotating residential IP pool covers 195 countries. The free plan (10 proxies, 1GB/month, no credit card) is one of the few genuinely free proxy offers that actually works.
Their dashboard is clean, the API documentation is well-written, and setup takes minutes. For basic scraping tasks on sites without aggressive anti-bot protection, Webshare is a perfectly reasonable choice.
How We Pick and Test What We Recommend
Every roundup you see on Roundproxies is put together by real people who live and breathe proxies, tools, and software. We don't just skim the surface, we roll up our sleeves and spend serious time digging into each product, putting it through real-world use, and measuring it against clear standards that actually matter for the category. No shortcuts, no guesswork. For more information on how we chose software, apps and tools, feel free to read the full article of how we pick the tools we recommend on Roundproxies blog.
Every roundup you see on Roundproxies is put together by real people who live and breathe proxies, tools, and software. We don't just skim the surface, we roll up our sleeves and spend serious time digging into each product, putting it through real-world use, and measuring it against clear standards that actually matter for the category. No shortcuts, no guesswork. For more information on how we chose software, apps and tools, feel free to read the full article of how we pick the tools we recommend on Roundproxies blog.
Where It Falls Short
But three problems keep coming up in production.
Targeting limitations. Webshare only supports country-level targeting on residential proxies. No city, state, or ASN selection. If you're doing localized price monitoring or geo-specific SERP tracking, that's a dealbreaker.
No mobile proxies. Social media platforms and mobile-first sites increasingly flag non-mobile IPs. Webshare doesn't offer mobile proxies at all, which eliminates an entire category of use cases.
The bandwidth trap. Their "unlimited" datacenter plans sound great until you hit the fair usage policy. After exceeding 10TB (calculated as plan price ÷ 10), speeds drop from 300-400 Mbps to as low as 5 Mbps. That's not unlimited — it's throttled.
Aggressive account verification. Multiple Trustpilot reviews report accounts being suspended mid-project for automated ID verification. Webshare's system triggers when usage patterns hit certain thresholds on rate-limited sites. Your proxies go dark with no warning while "verification" completes — sometimes taking days.
No scraping API. Most competitors now bundle scraping APIs, SERP scrapers, or data extraction tools alongside raw proxy access. Webshare offers proxies and nothing else. If you need structured data output, you're building everything from scratch.
There's also the Oxylabs acquisition question. Having your proxy provider owned by a direct competitor raises obvious concerns about data handling, network priority, and long-term product direction.
1. Best for Web Scraping at Scale
Roundproxies
What it does: Full-stack proxy provider with 100M+ residential IPs across 195+ countries, plus datacenter, ISP, and mobile proxy options.
Why it stands out: Roundproxies hits the sweet spot between the budget providers and the enterprise giants. During testing against Amazon product pages over a 7-day scraping run, success rates stayed above 99.9% with zero CAPTCHA interruptions. That's the kind of consistency you need when running production scrapers.
The IP rotation happens at the backconnect level — you get a fresh IP per request automatically without managing rotation logic yourself. For most scraping workflows, this means less code and fewer edge cases to handle.
Three things Webshare users will notice immediately: city-level targeting (not just country), mobile proxies for social media work, and non-expiring traffic. Buy 50GB, use it over three months. No monthly bandwidth resets eating your budget.
Authentication is straightforward. Username/password, IP whitelisting, or API key — pick whichever fits your setup. The integration guides cover Puppeteer, Selenium, Scrapy, and curl out of the box.
Protocol support includes HTTP, HTTPS, and SOCKS5 across all proxy types. Webshare offers the same protocols but can't match the proxy type diversity — particularly on mobile and ISP categories.
The dashboard could use a design refresh. It's functional but not winning any awards. That said, the API documentation is solid, and the setup guides for third-party tools cover the common integrations.
Pricing: Residential proxies from $2.10/GB (with 50% discount code RP50). Datacenter proxies from $0.30/IP. ISP proxies from $1.00/IP. Mobile proxies available with unlimited bandwidth.
Limitations: Smaller brand presence than Bright Data or Oxylabs. Dashboard UI lags behind competitors like Smartproxy.
Free trial: 500MB residential bandwidth for 24 hours, no credit card required.
2. Best for Enterprise Operations
Bright Data
What it does: The largest proxy network in the industry with 72M+ residential IPs, plus datacenter, ISP, and mobile options across 195 countries.
Why it stands out: Bright Data is the provider you move to when you're spending $5,000+/month on proxies and need enterprise-grade compliance. GDPR and CCPA compliant, SOC 2 certified, and built for teams that treat web data as infrastructure.
Their network size is genuinely impressive. Where smaller providers might struggle with niche geographic targets, Bright Data usually has IPs available. ZIP code-level targeting in the US is a feature most competitors can't match.
But that scale comes with a steep learning curve and aggressive upselling. Their dashboard has more options than most users need, and the sales team will push enterprise features whether you want them or not.
Pricing: Residential proxies from $8.40/GB at low volumes. Drops to ~$3.30/GB at 10TB scale. Pay-as-you-go and subscription options available.
Limitations: Expensive at low volumes. Complex dashboard. Sales-heavy onboarding. Not practical for individuals or small teams.
Worth noting: Bright Data's Web Unlocker handles CAPTCHAs, browser fingerprinting, and JavaScript rendering automatically. If you're scraping heavily protected targets (think Nike, Amazon, or airline sites), that built-in unblocking saves significant development time. But you're paying for it in the per-GB rate.
3. Best Budget Residential Proxies
Smartproxy (Decodo)
What it does: 115M+ residential IPs across 195 countries with sub-0.6-second average response times. Recently rebranded from Smartproxy to Decodo.
Why it stands out: Decodo consistently delivers the best price-to-performance ratio in the residential proxy space. Their 99.68% success rate is industry-leading at their price point, and response times rarely exceed a second.
The pay-as-you-go option is particularly useful for testing. No monthly commitment, no expiring credits — just buy traffic and use it when you need it. For teams running mid-scale scraping operations (100K-1M requests/day), Decodo sits in the pricing sweet spot.
Their Chrome extension and dashboard are genuinely well-designed. If Webshare's interface felt basic, Decodo's will feel like an upgrade.
Pricing: Residential from $3.50/GB (with RESI50 promo code for 50% off). Pay-as-you-go available. 14-day money-back guarantee.
Limitations: Advanced rotation configurations aren't available. If you need custom rotation intervals or hyper-specific session control, Bright Data or Oxylabs offer more flexibility.
4. Best for Non-Expiring Traffic
IPRoyal
What it does: 34M+ residential IPs across 195 countries, with datacenter, ISP, and mobile proxy types.
Why it stands out: IPRoyal's traffic never expires. Buy bandwidth today, use it six months from now. For teams with unpredictable scraping schedules — seasonal research projects, quarterly audits, or burst workloads — this alone can save hundreds of dollars in wasted monthly allocations.
Their mobile proxies take a unique approach. Instead of shared pools, you rent a dedicated mobile device with a real SIM card and unlimited bandwidth. That's about as close to a real mobile user as you can get. Coverage is limited to 15 countries across two continents, but the IP quality is excellent for account management and social media tasks where carrier authenticity matters.
City and state-level targeting on residential proxies works well. Success rates hit 99.7% in testing — solid but a step below the top-tier providers.
IPRoyal also supports HTTP, HTTPS, and SOCKS5 across all proxy types. Their Chrome and Firefox extensions make manual testing quick — useful when you want to spot-check how a target site responds before writing automation code.
Pricing: Residential from $1.75/GB (non-expiring). Datacenter from $1.39 for 100 proxies. Mobile proxies priced per device.
Limitations: No scraping API or additional data extraction tools. The proxy service is straightforward — proxies only, no managed solutions. That might be exactly what you want, or it might not be enough.
5. Best for Geo-Targeting Precision
SOAX
What it does: Residential, mobile, ISP, and datacenter proxies with 33M+ mobile IPs and targeting down to city, carrier, and ASN level.
Why it stands out: SOAX's filtering options rival the enterprise providers at a fraction of the cost. Target by country, region, city, carrier, or ASN. Set rotation intervals from 90 seconds to 10 minutes, or keep sticky sessions up to an hour.
Their mobile proxy pool is the largest on this list at 33M IPs. For social media automation, ad verification, or any workflow requiring mobile IP diversity, SOAX provides the widest selection.
The platform also includes scraping APIs, datasets, and an AI scraper — features Webshare doesn't offer at all. If you need more than raw proxy access, SOAX bundles it in.
SOAX also earned a 4.8/5 rating on G2 and was named a Leader in their 2025 Winter report. That kind of independent validation matters when you're evaluating providers that all claim 99.9% uptime.
Pricing: Residential from $4.00/GB pay-as-you-go. Mobile from $9/GB PAYG, or $5.40/GB with subscription. $1.99 trial with 400MB over 3 days.
Limitations: Response times averaged 1.39 seconds in testing — noticeably slower than Decodo or Roundproxies. The broader infrastructure adds latency. Fine for most scraping, but not ideal for latency-sensitive applications.
How to Choose the Right Webshare Alternative
| If you need... | Go with... | Because... |
|---|---|---|
| All-around scraping with mobile support | Roundproxies | Full proxy type coverage, non-expiring traffic, competitive pricing |
| Enterprise compliance and massive scale | Bright Data | Largest network, GDPR/SOC 2 certified, ZIP-code targeting |
| Best value residential proxies | Smartproxy (Decodo) | Lowest cost per GB at mid-scale, fastest response times |
| Bandwidth that never expires | IPRoyal | Pay once, use whenever — no monthly resets |
| Carrier and ASN-level targeting | SOAX | Most granular geo-filtering, largest mobile pool |
Wrapping Up
Webshare still makes sense if you need cheap datacenter proxies for basic scraping against sites with minimal bot protection. Their free tier is a genuine freebie, and sub-$3/month plans are hard to argue with.
But if you've outgrown country-only targeting, need mobile proxies, or want your traffic to survive past the monthly billing reset — it's time to move on.
For most scraping workflows, Roundproxies offers the best balance of proxy type coverage, targeting precision, and pricing flexibility. Start with their free trial and run it against your actual target sites before committing.
One practical tip: before switching providers, export your current Webshare proxy configuration and test the replacement against your three hardest targets. Proxy performance varies wildly by target site. A provider that works flawlessly on Amazon might struggle on Zillow or TikTok.
Run at least 1,000 requests per target over 24 hours. Track success rate, response time, and CAPTCHA frequency. That gives you enough data to make a confident decision without committing budget.
The best proxy provider is the one that works for your specific targets. Test before you buy.
