The Best Proxy Services For Scraping

Ever tried web scraping without proxies? How far did you go? Were you successful, or did you get banned along the way? You can’t scrape without getting banned unless you are scraping just a few pages. That is why proxies come in handy when it comes to scraping. Let’s look at some of the best proxy services for scraping, so you will be sure to get the most out of your purchase.

In recent times, website owners are doing all they can to spot and prevent automation tools and scrapers by setting request limits to not overwhelm the site, especially for low-powered websites. However, since scraping has come to stay and is legal, at least to some extent, you can make good use of proxies to unleash the full potential of the internet. While proxies can be very useful, you wouldn’t want to spend your budget on something that will bring you no return.

Why Do You Need Proxies For Scraping?

Proxies are essential for data scraping for various reasons. Your device’s IP address can help you complete lighter scraping activities that require only a few fewer queries than the maximum limit.

For most websites, that equates to 600 requests every hour. On the other hand, proxies become extremely important for large scraping operations involving thousands of requests.

Exceeding Limits

The owners of websites can set limits on the number of requests per IP address at any time to prevent abuse by data scrapers. What happens is that when you hit the set limit, your access to the site is blocked for a while, and in most cases, you would have to fill a CAPTCHA to prove that it’s a genuine request.

By using proxies, you can expand this limit since each address in the proxy pool gives you an additional number of requests. For instance, you can make up to 6,000 requests using just 10 proxy addresses. Each IP gives you 600 requests in an hour, so 600*10 gives you 6,000, which is quite sufficient for most scraping tasks.

Access Location-based data

Another reason you probably need proxies is to get your hands on location-specific data. Websites and search engines produce content tailored to the location of your IP address and display it accordingly.

As an example, suppose you wanted to scrape search results from Google on a certain topic, but you found yourself in Austria while trying to scrape search results on a topic in Russia. Alternatively, you can use proxies to do the job faster, cheaper, and more comfortably than traveling to Russia. All you need is a proxy with a Russian IP.

By-Pass IP blocks

IP addresses can be blocked or blacklisted on a website for spamming or violating other policies. When this happens, you will definitely want to buy proxies to change your IP. For that, you must see which ones are the best proxy services for scraping.

The Best Proxies For Web Scraping 

The best choice of proxies for any scraping task largely depends on what kind of traffic goes to the site you intend to scrape. It is therefore advisable to choose the right type of proxy for your scraping project.

• Residential Proxies – Residential proxies are perfect for accessing location-based data. These IP addresses correspond to real devices, so requests made with them are considered requests from real users. They are fast, secure, and reliable.

• Datacenter Proxies – Datacenter proxies are usually cheaper than residential proxies. However, when it comes to scraping, they are a bad choice. This is because they can easily be spotted and blocked as the IPs are registered to an organization.

• Mobile Proxies – These IPs belong to real mobile devices and are very difficult to spot or block. Just like residential proxies, mobile proxies are fast and reliable. Though they may be expensive to get, they are the right choice for scraping websites that only or mostly receive requests from mobile devices.

The Best Proxy Services For Scraping

Now you know the types of proxies you can use for your scraping project. Let’s have a look at some of the best proxy services for scraping you can use for any website.

Bright Data (Formerly Luminati)

Bright Data is one of the leaders when it comes to delivering premium proxy solutions to its users. They boast of a pool of over 72M IPs worldwide. Aimed at larger corporations and businesses, Bright Data is pretty expensive and might not be the choice for small-budget projects.

• Proxies: Residential, mobile, and datacenter proxies.
• Unlimited Bandwidth: No.
• Locations: Worldwide.
• Cheapest Plan: $300/month.

Oxylabs

Oxylabs has a pool of over 100M residential IPs that are fast, secure, and reliable. With Oxylabs you can get around geographical restrictions as they offer residential proxies all around the globe. Just like Bright Data, Oxylabs is quite expensive and is ideal for companies rather than for personal use.

• Proxies: Residential, datacenter.
• Unlimited Bandwidth: Only Datacenter proxies.
• Locations: Worldwide.
• Cheapest Plan: Datacenter -$180/month, residential – $300/month.

RSocks

RSocks is one of the most popular quality proxy providers out there, offering proxies from a pool of over 8M proxies. With RSocks, you are guaranteed fast speed, anonymity, and security. What makes RSocks stand out for me is that they allow users to purchase plans for exactly how long they need them; they have hourly, daily, weekly and monthly subscriptions. With these, you wouldn’t have to spend more than necessary.

• Proxies: Residential, datacenter, private mobile proxies.
• Unlimited Bandwidth: Yes.
• Locations: US, Europe, Asia.
• Cheapest Plan: $180/month.

SmartProxy

Smartproxy offers affordable but high-quality proxy solutions to its users across the globe. They offer rotating, backconnect, unlimited, shared, anonymous, HTTP, and IPv4 proxies. In addition, the dashboard is user-friendly making it suitable for beginners and intermediate proxy users alike. With their flexible subscription plans, you will certainly find a package that will meet your budget. All these make Smartproxy one of the best proxy services for scraping.

• Proxies: Residential and datacenter proxies.
• Unlimited Bandwidth: No.
• Locations: Worldwide.
• Cheapest Plan: $75/month.

StormProxies

StormProxies has become one of the most popular and cheapest proxy providers on the internet since its establishment back in 2016. Their residential backconnect proxies are known for their quality and performance, which makes them a popular choice among proxy users.

• Proxies: Residential proxies.
• Unlimited Bandwidth: Allowed.
• Locations: the US and Europe.
• Cheapest Plan: $50/month.

Proxy-Cheap

Proxy-Cheap offers a cheap proxy service, just as its name suggests. It has a pool of over 6 million IPs from over 127 locations around the world. Even though the pool is not very large, Proxy-Cheap offers a user-friendly interface that can be used by newbies and less experienced users alike. Proxy-Cheap charges per GB and gives you a discount if you purchase more than 200 GB per monthly subscription.

• Proxies: Residential, datacenter, and 3G/4G mobile proxies.
• Unlimited Bandwidth: No.
• Locations: 127 locations worldwide.
• Cheapest Plan: $3/GB.

Infatica

Infatica has made a name for itself for delivering one of the fastest proxy solutions on the internet. They offer users proxies from a pool of over 10M IPs from popular cities in the US, Europe, and parts of Asia. Their proxies come with higher levels of anonymity and 99.5% uptime. Infatica provides live chat and tickets that are answered immediately and has great performance.

• Proxies: Residential, mobile, and dedicated datacenter proxies.
• Unlimited Bandwidth: No.
• Locations: US, Europe, Asia, Middle East.
• Cheapest Plan: $360/month.

Shifter

Shifter is one of the best providers and has since its establishment in 2012 offered quality proxy solutions at affordable rates. They boast of a whopping 31 million IPs that are carefully sourced to offer the best performance possible. Aside from being one of the fastest, Shifter also gives unlimited bandwidth as it charges per the number of ports.

• Proxies: Backconnect residential proxies, dedicated and shared datacenter proxies. 
• Unlimited Bandwidth: Allowed. 
• Locations: United States – New York.
• Cheapest Plan: $249.99/month.

Conclusion

Proxies can help ease things up a bit and allow you to go around IP blocks and request limits which makes them very important for web scraping of any nature. However, like any other product/service on the internet, some providers are just not worth it. I hope this article is useful in helping you choose the best proxy solution.

Now that you know some of the best proxy services for scraping, I recommend that you choose a provider from this list based on your project requirement for better scraping. What are you waiting for? Pick a provider from the list and get the best proxy service for your scraping project!