Best proxy of 2023

The best proxy services make it simple and easy to secure your privacy online, protect networks, or to gather publicly available data.

A proxy serves as a gateway between you and the internet, so when using proxy servers the details of the websites you visit and other online history is saved to that server, rather than to your computer. 

This allows for a degree of anonymous surfing, with the caveat that proxy servers will often save at least some details of your online activity. This means a full investigation of the server records may make it possible to personally identify you.

This is unlikely to be a problem for the vast majority of people, and the best proxy servers otherwise provide a useful, albeit if basic way to avoid the extensive advertiser tracking and routine privacy intrusions that are now commonplace online, something sometimes referred to as "martech".

However, do note that a lot of the best proxy server providers also provide paid-for Virtual Private Network (VPN) services, which can offer better security and privacy than a proxy service alone. In which case, it may be worth considering getting a free VPN or pay for one of the best VPN services instead. 

If you're not sure whether a proxy server will be better, check out our guide Proxy servers vs VPN: Why VPNs are better. 

In the meantime, below we'll list what we think are the best proxy services, free and paid-for. We compared these proxies across various aspects, from their pricing models to the variety of server locations they offer and the overall speed. We also looked at their encryption levels and server speeds, among other aspects.

Start reading the best proxies for network protection and data gathering, or jump to best free proxy servers for personal privacy.

We've also covered the best privacy tools and anonymous browsers and the best credit monitoring services. 

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The best proxies of 2023 in full:

Best overall

IPRoyal is an attractive low-cost proxy provider that offers a versatile selection of different proxies. These include over 2 million residential proxies - which the company describes as "ethically sourced" - from 195 countries. Additionally, IPRoyal also provides another 6 million IPs from datacenter proxies, and niche-specific sneaker proxies. 

Its user interface is beginner-friendly and easy to get the hang of, and support services are exceptional. On the downside, limited self-help documentation means you may have to reach out to the IPRoyal team if you have significant issues. Overall, IPRoyal is an excellent option worth considering for an array of different uses. 

Overall, with a selection of different subscription options, some of the most affordable prices we’ve seen, and a responsive support team, IPRoyal stands out as a leading proxy service provider.

Read our full IPRoyal review.

Best for deep pockets

The first that strikes you about Bright Data (formerly Luminati) is its huge proxy pool of over 72 millions IPs. The service offers all kinds of proxies. In addition to rotating residential IPs, the service also offers static ones, which are a group of 6 to 100 residential addresses for your exclusive use that haven't been previously used with your target domain. Bright Data also sells mobile IPs that cost more than the usual residential IPs but are more resilient and will work on particularly difficult to please targets.

If you have very specific targeting requirements, you’ll appreciate Bright Data's support for ASN (Autonomous System Number) in addition to the usual targeting options such as country, state, and city.

To use its proxies, you can use the Proxy Manager, which is an open source tool that can be installed on top of Windows, macOS and Linux for free. The Proxy Manager can help you define rules for IP rotation, blacklist IPs that give bad results, optimize bandwidth usage by routing some requests through your regular non-proxied connection, and more.

Bright Data’s residential proxies support all the main protocols including HTTP, HTTPS and even SOCKS5. The service also has a comprehensive support infrastructure with multiple avenues of help including video tutorials and webinars.

However, all the features and dexterity comes at a price. While the service advertises a base rate for all types of proxies, specifying additional parameters such as the targeting levels has an effect on the final cost of the proxy. The service also has multiple payment plans to accommodate different users. In addition to the standard monthly subscriptions, Bright Data also offers a pay-as-you-go plan. The plans are on average more expensive than many of its peers, but will seem reasonable particularly to large scale proxy users and those with very specific requirements.

Read our full Bright Data review.

Best residential proxy

Oxylabs has an extensive network of over 70 million residential proxies that cover all the countries and cities in the world. In addition to the country and city you can also target proxies based on the ASN (autonomous system number). However these residential IPs use backconnect gateway servers and you’ll have to manually modify this address to add parameters for targeting information. 

Oxylabs claims that their residential proxies include mobile IPs as well, but the service provider doesn’t give you the option to choose them specifically for your tasks. These residential proxies rotate IPs at every request to ensure the target cannot block you. 

The proxy provider also offers static non-rotating residential proxies that it procures straight from ISPs. Oxylabs claims these give you the best of both data center and residential proxies, in terms of speed and resilience. Also these static ones support the SOCKS5 protocol, unlike the standard rotating ones that don’t.

Its pool of over 2 million data center IPs that aren’t shared but dedicated for your exclusive use, also support the SOCKS5 protocol. These also offer a proxy rotator add-on to automatically rotate the data center IPs. 

The one unique offering in oxylabs portfolio is the next-gen residential proxy that employs machine learning and AI to more successfully mimic a regular user’s browsing behavior and work around blocks and captchas. 

Oxylabs also has a web scraping tool of its own called Scraper APIs that’ll fetch the data for you in either HTML or JSON format. 

The service has tiered plans that get more cost effective as you increase your commitment.

Read our full Oxylabs review.

Best affordable proxy

You can get both residential and data center proxies from Smartproxy. Its pool of over 5040 million rotating residential IPs comes from desktop and mobile devices and is shared between all of its users. 

While this can be a disadvantage as you can get a flagged IPs, the provider assures us that its quick rotation policy ensures its proxies don’t get banned. Smartproxy offers its tiers of plans by bandwidth, but allows you to run an unlimited number of concurrent threads. 

You can select the proxy you want to use from a list of backconnect gateway servers in your dashboard. By default, Smartproxy displays all the different gateways for the countries and cities that it supports. You can however filter down the proxies based on a couple of useful parameters such as the location, and the type of session-  (rotating or sticky). Depending on these choices, the dashboard will show the appropriate proxy gateway that you can then use in your apps and tools. 

If you plan to use the proxy to browse the web, Smartproxy also has extensions for the popular browsers of Chrome and Firefox. This can use the extension is useful to again narrow down the location and type of proxy you want, with the option to even choose the authentication mechanism.

Read our full Smartproxy review.

Best privacy-oriented proxy

With Webshare, the emphasis is on cyber security, along with speed. In fact, these folks make the bold claim that it has the ‘Fastest proxies’- which we can’t quite verify nor refute. Webshare has a global proxy network that gets fully ‘Encrypted and protected,’ continuously. They are certainly a high volume provider that processes in excess of 250 billion data points each month (yes, that is billion with a ‘B’), and used by over 12,000 businesses.

Webshare offers plenty of features to attract and satisfy its user base. This starts with support for both HTTP and SOCKS5 proxy, with availability for authentication or password authentication.

Not sure if this fits your needs? A standout of Webshare is the available free proxy plan. Sure, as would be expected, it is limited to just 10 free IPs, so it is hardly useful for a larger project. Still, it does not require a credit card, and it is a permanent plan, so not a time limited trial.

Overall, Webshare is an attractive proxy with clear benefits. It is easy to see the free tier, the high level of security, the emphasis on anonymity, the speeds of the proxies, and the choice of several plans. However, we are put off by the lack of support options, the prices on the plans, and also that competitors offer proxies in many more locations. Overall, the free proxy is worth trying, with all of the features, to see if this proxy meets your needs.

Read our full Webshare Proxy Servers review.

Best proxy at wholesale cost

Rampage Retail is a smaller company that has only been around since summer of 2020, based out of Miami, Florida. Its goal is to be fully transparent on its providers, and also the pricing, with proxies(opens in new tab) available at wholesale cost, in whatever quantity is needed. 

Rampage Retail essentially buys the proxies from a number of leading proxy services, and then resells them. They can acquire the proxies at a lower rate, as they are able to buy a higher end plan for the lower rate, and then pass the savings along to its customers. It resells for leading services, such as Oxylabs, Geosurf and Smartproxy.

Rampage Retail offers a intriguing approach to accessing a proxy service. Users will like the extremely large database of proxies, the very cost effective approach, and the latest anti-bot measures. Alternatively, our concerns include the total lack of self help content, the limited direct support contact methods, and the lack of a free trial. Still, for users that want a cost effective solution to their proxy needs, while accessing the largest pool of proxies, Rampage Retail offers a service more than worth considering. 

Overall, Rampage Retail offers an affordable option in the proxy space for a budget conscious business. 

Best proxy for small-time proxy users

Storm Proxies is designed for individual and small time proxy users that will happily trade many of the features you get with some of the proxy heavyweight for affordable pricing plans. 

The service provider offers rotating residential proxies, private dedicated proxies which offer data center IPs, and backconnect rotating proxies which have a mix of data center and residential IPs. 

The best thing about Storm Proxies is that all its proxies come with unlimited bandwidth. Instead its private dedicated proxies limit accounts on the number of IPs, the backconnect rotating proxies bases plans on the number of simultaneous connections, while the rotating residential proxies with prices based on the number of ports. Each port is capable of running up to 50 simultaneous connections.

Storm Proxies also doesn’t shy away from accepting the limitations of its proxies, which it clearly states for each of its supported proxy types.

The backconnect rotating proxies come from a pool of 70,000 IPs and only allow you to choose between three broad regions namely US, EU, and worldwide. These are backconnect proxies that are served via different gateways, each with its separate rotating time. 

The 5-minute rotating residential proxies come from an even smaller pool of around 40,000 IPs. They only cover the US and EU locations and don’t allow you to choose which countries or cities you want to target. 

There are several plans for each of the different types of proxies, but rest assured they are cheaper than most of the other proxy services. 

Read our full Storm Proxies review.

Best user-based proxies

PacketStream offers a proxy service based solely on residential proxies, which means that there are no mobile proxies, nor are there stable ISP based residential proxies. Rather, it is entirely user based proxies, millions strong that are selling the unused bandwidth on their network connection to PacketStream, who is in turn leasing it back to its user base. Folks that supply a proxy node get their bandwidth measured, and credited back for what the PacketStream users consume. They also claim zero restrictions, and a 99% uptime, realizing that competing services have even higher claimed uptimes.  

By using all of these residential connections, the browsing becomes quite anonymous, which is the advantage of this method. There are many potential uses for such a powerful technology. 

PacksetStream offers a unique entry into the proxy space. We are impressed at its pricing via a single tier of plan that it could be considered disruptive to competitors, and the potential for others to profit by selling their residential internet connection. At the same time, we are concerned by the limited support options, that the terms of service for our ISP would suggest to not resell it, and that the blog was last updated four years ago. Still, for a business with a limited budget, at this cost, PacketStream is worth a trial.

Read our full PacketStream review.

Best free proxy servers:

Best free proxy overall

Hide.Me advertises itself as the fastest free proxy server, due to not keeping their own logs in order to help speed up the service. 

Whether that unconfirmed title is deserved or not, it's still a decent free proxy that is worthy of your considerationyou should consider using. You can use it directly through the website, or alternatively use the Firefox or Chrome browser extensions to use the service. Realize that the service has limited locations for proxies toonly has proxies in Europe, specifically in the Netherlands, Germany, and Finland. Also, while it does have the feature forgive you various privacy enhancing options like the ability to encrypt URL and pages, you don’t haveget these options while you are visiting a website. 

Unlike some of the other free services, Hide.me displays annoying pop-up adverts while using the paid-for VPN service. If you can live with that annoyance, then you should probably be fine using Hide.Me.

Read our full Hide.me review.

Best free proxy for city-specific servers

Hide My Ass offers a free web proxy service that’s very handy when you want to browse privately, but don’t have time or permission to download additional software or browser extensions. There are certainly some limitations for free such as that the protection is limited to a single tab. Also, keep in mind that the premium software offers faster speeds, more secure encryption, and active malware protection – but for a quick bit of browsing, the free tier is a good option. 

Hide My Ass’s free proxy masks your identity and IP address. It is one of the few services that allows you to select specific cities instead of just countries to route your requests through. The free service even supports a choice of servers in New York City, Seattle, Frankfurt, Amsterdam, London, and Prague. 

A shortcoming is that Hide My Ass’s web proxy service collects log files, which include your IP address, the URLs you visit, which pages and files you viewed, and when. It also stores this data for a full 30 days – a policy that pushed it down our list of preferences.

Read our full Hide My Ass review.

Best free proxy for ease of use

KProxy offers a browser-based service, an extension for Chrome or Firefox, and a portable version of Firefox available with the extension already installed – a nice touch that lets you use the proxy on PCs at school, university or work. 

Setup is a piece of cake – once the extension is installed, pick a remote server (the free version offers several options in Montreal and Munich) and click ‘Connect.’. Secure HTTPS connections are even supported. 

The service does have some limitations which may or may not be deal breakers: you can only browse freely for three hours at a stretch, or until you’ve reached your 300MB data cap. Once you hit this limit, you might see a tab prompting you to purchase a premium account, but this isn’t mandatory as– you can reconnect again free after taking a breather for 30 minutes. 

When it comes to KProxy’s privacy policy, the firm notes: “You also understand that despite our best efforts this service may not provide a 100% guarantee of privacy and anonymity. In accordance with our privacy policy, KProxy reserves the right to turn over the IP addresses of users who abuse our system either to the appropriate legal authorities, or to those against whom abuse has been perpetrated.”

Read our full KProxy review.

Best free proxy for privacy

If you want to bypass geo-blocks and avoid being snooped, you can use Hidester’s proxy service to browse the web anonymously. 

Hidester doesn’t require any signup nor do you need to install any software. Just head to the website, from your desktop or your mobile device and enter the URL you want to visit in the space provided. By default it routes your request through US-based servers, but you also get the option to switch to European servers. There is an extension available for the Chrome browser. 

Hidester also has a number of options to further ensure your privacy. By default it will encrypt URLs, and remove scripts. It does allow cookies by default, but you have the option to even turn that off though that’ll ruin your browsing experience. 

You can however choose to clear your cookies when closing the proxy session using the helpful Hidester bar at the top of the page. You can even change the browser’s referrer string from a pull-down list of preset values in the top bar. 

The service claims it doesn’t keep any logs of your visits and assures that they are in full control of their servers with no third party IP proxy involvement. Also of note, Hidester indicates that it has shut down its VPN service.

Read our full Hidester review.

Best proxy FAQs

The future of proxies

Businesses mostly use proxies for large-scale data gathering and extraction, but this is not an easy process. It consists of many complex tasks, especially when anti-data gathering measures are becoming more sophisticated and making it harder to collect publicly available information without being blocked. To address this, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) innovations are gradually being applied.

Ultimately, proxies are extremely valuable solutions for both individuals and businesses that need to make accurate data-driven decisions. For individuals, proxies can help to access geo-blocked content, improve security levels, and optimise a web activity. For businesses, not only will they provide an extra layer of security, but they are quickly becoming an indispensable tool to gather publicly available information.

The best proxy: How we test

To test the best proxy services, we evaluated their speeds, server options, security and encryption grade, the size of their proxy pool, and whether they support the SOCKS5 protocol. 

We checked whether the proxy could work its way around blocks and captchas, and if it had a web scraping tool to fetch data for you. We looked at the pricing structure and how cost-effective it would be for different types of users. 

We also noted if the proxies had extra features like their own browsers, automatic web log deletion, ad blocking, etc. 

Read how we test, rate, and review products on TechRadar.

We've listed the best proxy for sneakers.