ProductsProduct portfolio Choose your access layer Use proxies directly, or move up to managed unblocking, browser execution, scraping, and search-result APIs. AccessUnblockExtract Proxies Direct network access with targeting, sessions, and familiar proxy authentication. Residential ProxiesCountry-targeted residential access for public web data workflows. Web access Managed retrieval, browser execution, retries, and access recovery. Web UnblockerRetrieve difficult websites while Raspbytes manages routing, retries, sessions, and browser fallback.Browser APIRun managed Chromium sessions for JavaScript-heavy and interactive workflows. Data APIs Structured website and search-result data through specialised APIs. Scraper APIRetrieve and extract website content without managing scraping infrastructure.SERP APIReceive structured, localised search results without managing proxies, browsers, or parsers. Not sure where to start? Compare products by workflow. View solutionsCompare pricing SolutionsWeb ScrapingRetrieve public website content through proxies, unblocker logic, scraping APIs, and browser execution.Search IntelligenceTrack rankings, localised search results, search visibility, and market signals.Price MonitoringMonitor product availability, pricing, and catalogue changes across markets.AI and Machine LearningBuild and refresh public web datasets for AI and machine-learning workflows. PricingResourcesBlogGuides on public web data access, extraction, automation, and responsible use.FAQPricing, products, targeting, sessions, refunds, and allowed use.Proxy LocationsReview country coverage available for enabled proxy products. DevelopersDocumentationQuick starts, connection examples, API patterns, and implementation guidance.API ReferenceProduct endpoints, request fields, API-key permissions, and response examples.Code ExamplescURL, Python, JavaScript, and proxy-client examples for common workflows. CompanyAboutHow Raspbytes approaches reliable and responsible web data infrastructure.ContactTalk to us about use cases, plans, and onboarding. proxy provider Choosing the Right Proxy Provider Choosing a proxy provider can look straightforward at first. Find a provider with enough IPs, compare the price per GB, check which countries are available, and pick the cheapest option that seems rel proxy provider15 min readAug 10, 2026 Choosing a proxy provider can look straightforward at first. Find a provider with enough IPs, compare the price per GB, check which countries are available, and pick the cheapest option that seems reliable. In practice, there is much more to it. Two proxy providers can advertise millions of IP addresses and similar pricing while delivering very different results in production. One might provide stable connections and predictable targeting, while another produces frequent timeouts, inconsistent geolocation, or IP addresses that are already heavily restricted by the websites you need to access. The right provider therefore isn't necessarily the one with the biggest network or lowest advertised price. It's the provider whose infrastructure, network quality, controls, pricing, and policies fit your particular workload. This guide explains what to evaluate before choosing a proxy provider—and why those factors matter once you move beyond a few test requests. Start With Your Use Case Before comparing providers, define what you're actually trying to accomplish. Proxy requirements for collecting public product information from ecommerce websites can be very different from those for search engine monitoring, market research, ad verification, or high-volume crawling. Common legitimate proxy use cases include: Web scraping and public web data collection Search engine result monitoring Price and product monitoring Market and competitive research Ad verification Localization testing Brand protection Website testing Automated data pipelines Your workload determines which characteristics matter most. For example, if you're collecting geographically localized information, country or city targeting may be important. If you're crawling a large number of relatively accessible websites, inexpensive datacenter proxies might be more appropriate. There is rarely one universally "best" proxy network. There is usually a best network for a particular workload. 1. Choose the Right Proxy Type One of the first decisions is which type of proxy you need. The major categories are datacenter, residential, ISP, and mobile proxies. Datacenter Proxies Datacenter proxies use IP addresses associated with hosting providers and data centers rather than residential internet connections. Their main advantages are usually: High performance Stable connections Good availability Predictable infrastructure Lower cost than residential networks They're often a strong choice for workloads where websites don't aggressively restrict datacenter traffic. The disadvantage is that datacenter IP ranges can be relatively easy for websites to identify. Residential Proxies Residential proxies route traffic through IP addresses associated with consumer internet service providers. From the destination website's perspective, the traffic originates from a residential IP rather than a traditional hosting network. Residential networks are useful when you need: Large distributed IP pools Geographic diversity Country or regional targeting Access to websites that treat datacenter traffic differently They're generally more expensive than datacenter proxies, particularly for bandwidth-heavy workloads. ISP Proxies ISP proxies sit somewhere between residential and datacenter proxies. The IP address is typically associated with an ISP, while the underlying infrastructure may provide the stability and performance characteristics associated with hosted infrastructure. They can be useful when you want longer sessions and stable IP addresses while retaining an ISP-associated network identity. Mobile Proxies Mobile proxies use IP addresses associated with mobile networks. They can be useful for specialized applications involving mobile networks, localized mobile experiences, or services whose behaviour differs between fixed and mobile connections. They're typically one of the more expensive proxy categories. The important point is that more expensive does not automatically mean better. Using residential proxies for every workload can unnecessarily increase costs. Likewise, choosing datacenter proxies solely because they're cheaper may produce poor results on websites where those networks are frequently restricted. 2. Don't Be Distracted by IP Pool Size Proxy providers often advertise numbers such as: "100 million+ residential IPs." Large pools can certainly be valuable, particularly when operating geographically distributed workloads. But raw pool size tells you surprisingly little about network quality. Imagine two providers. Provider A advertises 80 million IP addresses. Provider B advertises 30 million. Provider A sounds better. But what if only a fraction of Provider A's addresses are regularly available in the countries you need? What if Provider B provides substantially better availability, connection quality, geographic accuracy, and IP reputation? Provider B may produce better results despite having the smaller headline number. Instead of looking only at total pool size, consider: Active IP availability Geographic distribution ASN and ISP diversity IP reputation Pool refresh characteristics Concurrent availability Availability within your target countries A useful question isn't simply: "How many IPs do you have?" It's: "How much usable capacity does the network provide for my workload?" 3. Test Reliability, Not Just Speed Speed is important, but proxy performance isn't simply about finding the provider with the lowest latency. Suppose one provider delivers requests in 700 milliseconds when successful but fails 15% of the time. Another averages 900 milliseconds but succeeds much more consistently. The second network may produce significantly better throughput. When testing providers, measure characteristics such as: Connection success rate How frequently can you successfully establish connections through the network? Time to first byte How quickly does the destination begin responding after your request? Total request latency How long does the complete request take? Timeout rate How frequently do requests exceed your application's timeout threshold? Error rate How often do you encounter proxy-level connection failures? Performance consistency Averages can hide significant problems. A provider might advertise an average response time of one second while occasionally producing 10- or 20-second requests. For production systems, predictable performance is often more valuable than impressive benchmark numbers. 4. Look at IP Quality and Reputation Not every IP address is equally useful. IP addresses accumulate reputation based on how they're used across the internet. An address that has been heavily abused may already appear on reputation databases or encounter restrictions across multiple services. For web data infrastructure, IP reputation can therefore have a direct effect on request success. When evaluating a provider, look beyond the number of addresses available. Consider: How frequently pools are refreshed Whether unhealthy endpoints are automatically removed How providers detect poor-performing IPs How abuse is monitored Whether reputation is considered when managing pools Whether customers can report problematic endpoints Good proxy infrastructure should actively manage network quality rather than simply exposing every available endpoint. 5. Geographic Targeting Should Be Accurate Geographic targeting is one of the biggest reasons organizations use proxy networks. You might need to see: Search results from Germany Product availability in France Localized pricing in the United States Regional content in the United Kingdom A provider may advertise country, state, or city targeting, but the accuracy and availability of those features can vary. Before committing, test the locations you actually need. If you need UK traffic, for example, don't judge the entire network using a handful of US requests. Likewise, city-level targeting may have substantially less available capacity than country-level targeting. The more specific your targeting requirements become, the more important network distribution becomes. 6. Understand Rotation and Session Control A good proxy service should give you control over how IP addresses are assigned. Two common approaches are rotating sessions and sticky sessions. Rotating Sessions With rotating proxies, the network can assign a different IP address as requests or sessions change. This is useful for distributed workloads where maintaining the same network identity isn't required. Sticky Sessions Sticky sessions allow you to retain the same IP address for a period of time. They're useful when your application needs continuity across multiple requests. For example: Request a page. Receive a session cookie. Make another request. Continue the same interaction. Changing IP addresses unnecessarily during that sequence can create inconsistent application behaviour. When evaluating providers, investigate how much control you have over: Rotation frequency Session duration Session identifiers Geographic targeting within sessions Pool selection Flexible session management becomes increasingly valuable as your scraping infrastructure becomes more sophisticated. 7. Calculate the Real Cost per Successful Request Proxy pricing can be misleading when compared purely by advertised rates. Residential proxies, for example, are frequently priced according to bandwidth consumption. Imagine: Provider A: $2 per GB Provider B: $3 per GB Provider A appears 33% cheaper. But suppose your application needs substantially more retries when using Provider A. Those retries consume: Additional bandwidth Worker capacity Compute re…