A reliable proxy can give you many benefits, from adding security to your network, protecting your privacy, keeping you from being tracked and allowing you to access geo-restricted content. There are many great proxy providers available, so how do you choose the best one for your needs? 
We’ve got you covered with this list of the best proxy providers available. We based our review on the great work done by Proxyway as a reference, along with independent testing and market research to bring you this review. We’ve split this list into categories that include the best residential and rotating proxies to make it even easier to find the right provider for your needs. In this review, we’ll be taking a look at the following proxy providers:
- 2 Overall Best Proxy Providers
- 2 Best Rotating proxies
- 2 Best Residential Proxies
2 Overall Best Proxy Providers
Sometimes you need a proxy that covers multiple functions while still offering a large pool of IPs and features. If you’re looking for a proxy provider that covers all your needs in one, these are your best choices:
Smartproxy
You’ll struggle to find a ‘best proxy’ list that doesn’t feature Smartproxy, and for a good reason. Smartproxy features one of the largest residential proxy pools of any provider, with at least 40 million IPs from real devices. They have a near-perfect connection success rate and premium quality performance without the price tag. In order to provide an affordable service, they may lack some premium features such as SOCKS5 support.
Best for: Value and excellent user experience
Not recommended for: Users that require premium features
Oxylabs
Oxylabs is a premium proxy provider with one of the largest proxy pools available. There are at least 100 million residential IPs to choose from in their vast pool. Their proxies also perform very well with a near-perfect connection success rate, superior stability and fast response rate. Their IPs are spread across all countries and most cities globally. They also offer many different tools, such as extracting and parsing data using ML and AI; however, these services come at a premium price.
Best for: Wide arsenal of premium tools
Not recommended for: Beginner or personal use as the price tag is relatively high
2 Best Rotating Proxies
Rotating proxies automatically change your IP address with each new request or at set intervals depending on the provider. If you’re in need of a residential rotating proxy to change your IP automatically, then these next providers offer great solutions:
Bright Data
Bright Data is a market leader when it comes to proxies. They offer a wide range of datacenter and residential rotating proxies with a pool of approximately 70 million IPs. They have powerful control tools, and you can fine-tune your pricing plan according to your needs. However, the pricing plan can be a bit difficult to understand.
Best for: Highly customizable rotating proxies
Not recommended for: Beginners with little to no technical knowledge
NetNut
NetNut features reliable datacenter and residential rotating proxies that change IPs automatically with each request. Their proxies are ideal for users scraping data at scale. The provider isn’t the easiest to use, and the infrastructure needs some work, so it’s not recommended for beginners.
Best for: High-volume scraping
Not recommended for: Users looking for an easy-to-use proxy
2 Best Residential Proxies
Residential proxies are perfect if you need IPs that will look like real devices and won’t get banned for suspicions of being a bot or spam. If you’re looking for reliable residential proxies to access content without getting blocked, the following providers have you well covered:
SOAX
Soax offers reliable residential proxies with a list of about 8.5 million IPs. However, the stand-out feature of this provider is its precise location targeting where you can choose a country, region, city and even ASN. The proxies also work very reliably; however, they are on the slower side.
Best for: Flexible location targeting
Not recommended for: Users that need fast proxies
Packet Stream
Packet Stream is one of the most affordable residential proxy providers available. Despite a smaller pool of about seven million rotating IPs, the performance was very competitive. It’s a very easy provider to use, and its price makes it ideal for beginners. However, we did find that you may quickly get duplicate proxies, especially when selecting locations outside of the US.
Best for: Beginners looking for an affordable and easy-to-use option
Not recommended for: Users that need a large IP pool
Final Thoughts
Overall, you can’t really go wrong with any of the proxy providers on this list, as they all provide reliable, high-quality proxies that can get the job done. However, when it comes to value for your money, Smartproxy is the obvious choice as it is easy to use, has many options available and offers a great user experience and support. However, if you’re looking for premium services and don’t mind paying a bit more for those services, you should consider Oxylabs.