10 Best Proxy Servers You Should Know in 2025

A proxy server is a mediator in- between you (your device), and the web. A proxy helps when you make a request to access a web site or other social media platform, your requests are sent through the proxy server first. In this, the actual IP address of your computer is obscured with the IP of the proxy, resulting in you remaining anonymous for both your location and identity as well as computer trail impressions. Fundamentally, proxies will act as a privacy buffer, bringing about anonymity. 

We have a variety of proxy servers, and they are used based on the requirement. Datacenter proxies are very fast and cheap, ideal in wholesale surfing or accessing sites that may have region restrictions. Residential proxies are based on the actual user devices and internet service providers (ISPs), replicate real users, and they are almost not noticed, thus, residential proxies are of great use in managing social media, web scraping or monitoring e-commerce. Mobile proxies go one step further and use 4Gs or 5G networks to grow their identity to look like everyday users on their smartphones.

Other than privacy, proxies are needed in regard to security and scalability. They are applied by businesses to filter traffic, block unauthorised traffic, and balance network loads. Proxies ensure ad verification to the marketer and anonymity of market data to the analysts. To protect personal data, multiple accounts across the web, and running data-driven tracks, proxy servers allow you to navigate and do business in a digitally scanned environment with safety.

In simple terms, a proxy is not simply a technological thing – it is your secure trail to privacy, versatility and freedom of the internet.

Why Proxy Servers Still Matter in 2025

Proxies have become a valuable tool for users in an era burdened by privacy concerns, geo-restrictions, and online tracking. A good proxy can make all the difference—allowing you to stream content unavailable in your country, protect your identity on multiple social media platforms, or manage tasks on social media automation platforms for efficient web scraping and data mining.

In the recent past, proxy providers have been managing hundreds of millions of IPs worldwide. Key features gaining popularity include rotating sessions, mobile and fixed residential IPs, and ethically obtained networks. Bright Data’s proxy servers, for example, offer over 150,000,000 IPs of all types (residential, datacenter, ISP, and mobile). Another major player, Oxylabs, has also excelled in providing large proxy server pools (residential, mobile, datacenter) with high success rates.

Using proxies is not only a matter of concealing an IP-address, but about control: control of what location you are supposed to be in, control of anonymity, and control of reliability. Streaming services, such as, do impose geo-IP; certain sites block IPs resembling addresses of data centres in case used on unusual traffic.

Residential or ISP proxies prevent most of these blocks since they pretend to be regular user IPs. Sticky session or rotating IPs are some of the methods that aid in mitigating the probability of being spotted or blocked. In addition to that, now proxy providers focus on compliance, moral sourcing, and good delivery, which is important in case you are concerned with the issues of privacy, logging, or legal liability. 

List of top 10 Proxy Servers in 2025

1. Bright Data (formerly Luminati)

Bright Data is traditionally considered one of the most robust, feature-packed proxy Servers providers today. It offers a wide range of proxy types: residential, ISP/static residential, mobile, and datacenter. Beyond proxies, it provides useful tools such as web unlockers, cloud browsers, web scrapers, datasets, and SEO tools. Its customers include enterprises, researchers, marketing/SEO teams, and serious scrapers who need scale and control.

Key Features & Performance

• More than 150 million IPs around the world depending on the type of proxies.
• Support of HTTPS and SOCKS5 protocols plus static residential and rotating/residential.
• Very strong geo-targeting: you can either target a country, or sometimes city/region, or sometimes a single ISP/ASN.
• Escape managers or anti-bot defeatery helpers, e.g., Web Unlocker as well as Scraping Browser.
• Firm compliance & ethics: calls ethical sourcing of IPs, GDPR/CCPA compliance in most of the features. 

Cost: Plans start from $2.50 to 5/ GB

Drawbacks

• Pricing is premium. Entrance resident strategies may begin at either summit frequency (e.g. 499/month of particular bandwidth) or on a-per-GB issue.
• When you have small use (light streaming or casual use), then most features would not suit and be very costly.
• There are features with learning curves: the dashboard, API tools, session management needs to be set up to some extent. 

Best Use Cases

• Users require real-time access to content in a vast amount of regions, scraping of content, verification of ads, or information gathering.
• High uptimes, support and transparency are required by professionals or businesses.
• When block avoidance is important–the residential / ISP static IP configurations prove useful. 

2. Oxylabs

Oxylabs is a large vendor who serves the needs of big companies: intensive scraping, company-wide data scraping, search optimization and business intelligence operations. They provide a significant amount of residential proxies, mobile proxies, ISP/static residential, and datacenter IPs. Its attention is on performance, reliability and high throughput tools.

Key Features & Performance

• Proxies pool of 175+ million IPs- residential- very large.
• The mobile proxy Servers pool of over 20 million+ IPs in accessing a real mobile network.
• Helyk-in-Noah Helpful in doing work in which the unleashing of phone invites individuality. ISP / static residential proxies are used when you require longer connection time or the occasional change of IP.
• High speed, less expensive datacenter proxies, use where speed is important and stealth is not.
• Auxiliary tools: proxy APIs, and proxy APIs, rotators, proxy APIs, scheduling, scraping helper tools. 

Cost: Plans start from $4/ GB

Trade-Offs

• Due to the size of the enterprise, the costs are increased. Various mobile or immobile residential proxies will be quite expensive, say many dollars per GB or per IP, when it comes to heavy traffic.
• In sporadic and minor chores, it may not be worth the money.
• Also, blockage may still occur even in cases when your usage is viewed as aggressive; regardless of the size of the pool, some patterns can be considered as viewed as suspicious by a site. 

Best Use Cases

• Big data collection (price control, product information, customer views) scholarly sample scraping web data.
• SEO agencies, online marketing sites or web developers who require IPs in most of the nations with stable uptimes.
• We often recommend Oxylabs when your requirements go beyond the basic level and requirements are high-performance and capacity to use numerous tools.

3. Smartproxy / Decodo

Smartproxy Smartproxy (also called Decoco in some sources) is between the two: powerful enough to do much with, yet less expensive to users with a smaller scale or tighter budget constraints. It provides datacenter proxies, residential proxies, mobile proxies and are static residential (ISP) proxies. It is an excellent one when you need a good IP variety and balanced prices.

Key Features & Performance

• They have a large residential proxy Server pool, 55M+ IPs, in numerous locations. These IPs are desktop and mobile real devices.
• These are in favor of sticky (you can use the same IP over some time, e.g. up to 24 hours) and rotating sessions.
• Static residential / ISP proxies: these are not as detectable concerning a number of applications where changing IPs frequently is treated as a block.
• They are also more inclined to provide discounted prices as compared to the more premium providers. That, as a compromise, provides you with good performance at reduced cost. 

Cost: Plans start from $0.50/ GB

Trade-Offs

• In the meantime, even at lower costs, greater volume consumption, or increased sophistication (such as dedicated IPs, city area targeting etc.) remains more expensive.
• Speed / success rates can not always take the same bright data/oxylabs on a highly secured site.
• Documentation / support is of a fair quality, although not, in certain instances, enterprise quality as the best providers. 

Best Use Cases

• Consumers wishing to have access to premium edition geo-restricted streaming or content at reduced costs than the enterprise edition.
• Small companies, self-employed or part-time scrapers, and who require the freedom, yet desire dependability.
• Handling various accounts of moderate security/ stealth requirements. 

4. Webshare

Webshare is an inexpensive, customizable proxy solution with datacenter to proxy, ISP / static residential, shared, private and dedicated policy. It is of interest to users who would like to get small (trial, low-cost plans) or would require lots of proxies yet not at enterprise level. 

Key Features & Performance

• In its proxy business, it provides three basic categories of products: Premium (shared static), Private (a very limited number of users sharing), and Dedicated proxies.
• All static by default. USTSIP, SOCKS5 protocols are supported.
• Location: several countries (US, UK, Germany, France, Netherlands, etc.), and datacenters and ISP as well as static residential mixes.
• UI / API to maintain lists of proxies, proxy lists download, real-time usage, and so on.
• Their plan is free: the beginning plan of 10 shared datacenter proxies (small bandwidth) to test etc.

Cost: Plans start from $0 to 0.0299/ GB

Trade-Offs

• Budgets are significantly lower/per GB or/per proxy than premium providers. But as use is increased or more advanced IPs (ISP / dedicated) cost is more.
• The blockage of shared proxies is easily achieved as opposed to dedicated or residential proxies. This means that the probability of getting caught is high in case there are numerous users sharing a similar IP.
• Performance (latency, passing solid anti-bot sites, etc.) can fall short in comparison with the best providers. 

Best Use Cases

• Speech therapists with beginners who are trialing out proxies and small projects, hobby scraping, streaming or unblocking content on a low budget.
• Users require shared/ static IPs and are not very stealthy/ res- IPs.
• You would like to be able to trial a proxy servers provider without having to make huge budgets. 

5. IPRoyal

One of the cheaper proxy providers is IPRoyal, which is especially handy in cases, when you need residential or mobile IPs only, but you do not want to spend a fortune on it. It is likely to be selected by users that need privacy, or geo-flexibility, or other non-enterprise scale scraping. It appears in rankings frequently due to its hybrid character and its low price.

Key Features & Performance

• Extensive geographical IP access with lots of residential proxies.
• IProyal frequently wins the rank of the best overall proxy provider as far as price and universality are concerned, in residential proxy provider lists. Both rotating and static IPs offer a residential category.
• Users that need to keep sessions or not to be detected like IPRoyal better.
• A lot of at least decent success rates, at least on the less guarded sites. Somewhat secured sites such as residential or mobile IPs may work better. 

Cost: Plans start from $1.75/ GB

Trade-Offs

• Although cheaper than high quality brands, the cost will escalate with high volume usage.
• Proxy IPs have potential differences in quality – a slower IP, more likely to be blocked, etc.
• The reduced support, or the reduced number of advanced tools than with Bright Data or Oxylabs. 

Best Use Cases

• Those users require geo-diverse IPs and moderate high-performance at a low cost.
• Light scraping, unblocking or casual streaming.
• One can have greater mobility (Mobile IPs) with even greater rates.

6. SOAX

SOAX has particularly good mobile and residential proxy networks containing good geo-targeting. It is also appropriate to users needing to appear as IPs that appear real (devices/residential), typically in operations that make use of regional/city level IPs. SOAX is likely to work fairly well, provided that you require mobile IPs or wish to be a draw in a particular city or ISP.

Key Features & Performance Huge

• Listed in best residential proxy servers providers.
• The static residential proxies or ISP proxies (i.e. not rotating) around are allowed by many plans which can facilitate fixed sessions.
• Good geo-targeting: can select cities, regions, not countries.
• Helps in streaming, testing of localized work or even voting out regional restrictions. 

Cost: Plans start from $2/ GB

Trade-Offs

• More costly than simple shared datacenter proxies particularly to mobile or very geo-specific.
• Not all features such as advanced tools or extensions of the browsers can be found or as refined.
• IPs with a low latency can be restricted in some of the cases.

Best Use Cases

• Users with the requirement to access content or services that are intended to different cities or mobile networks.
• Managing social media e.g. faking an appearance in local markets.
• Anybody requiring residential realness ,not necessarily velocity.

7. NetNut

NetNut is the provider of static strategy residential proxies (ISP level) known for their speed and low latency, along with residential legitimacy. It’s ideal for users who need reliability without huge rotating proxy pools.

IP switching is supported, making it favorable when stability is required, especially for applications needing fewer blocks or persistent connections—perfect for tasks like controlling a VPN state or scraping web servers. Consider combining it with the best VPN for enhanced security and seamless browsing.

Key Features & Performance

• Dynamic residential IPs (administered by the ISP) are generally more stable, and they are less inclined to be raised, since they perform in effect like authentic user networks.
• Superior functionality in most of daily tasks: content unblocking, streaming, SEO monitoring, etc.
• In case of smaller use or medium volume, prices are relatively low compared to leading players.
• In locations that are lesser known, NetNut shows success rates than that of its competitors.

Cost: Plans start from $0.45 to 1.59/ GB

Trade-Offs

• Since they are residential / ISP, the cost per IP or even per GB will be more expensive compared to pure datacenter proxies.
• More detection risk, unless set up, than large premium pools, popular websites are highly protected.
• Few, or no, free, or trial versions; typically aimed at somewhat serious users at a fee. 

Best Use Cases

• Users with the requirements of having stable IPs during sessions (sale sensitive sites, platforms read frequent changes in IP).
• SEO monitoring, ad checking or localizing of the content.
• Where it is residential legitimacy that is important rather than crude speed.

8. Datacenter Proxy Providers (Budget / DIY / Free options)

Datacenter proxies are Non- residential proxies, and were deployed in commercial health centers. They are the most affordable, or generally the quickest. There are numerous cheap datacenter proxies, some of which can be rotated, some can be shared and some can be dedicated.

In addition, they have so-called free proxies but these are accompanied by major disadvantages. In case of streaming, straight forward content access, or less risky data mining (non-actual websites) datacenter proxies may be needed. 

Key Features & Performance

• Time-latencies are extremely low and speed is high.
• Traffic can be quick as it is all digital content that passes through bigger server hardware.
• Lower cost. Datacenter proxies are less expensive per IP or per GB due to the ease of the infrastructure maintenance.
• A significant number of providers support needed protocols (HTTP/S, SOCKS5). Others offer rotation or sticky. 

Cost: Starts from a free plan to a flexible amount depending on your needs.

Trade-Offs

• Likely to have blocked them on the restrictive websites (banks, certain streaming services or the anti-bot systems).
• Less real user authenticity compared to residential/mobile proxy IP. Shared IPs can be of bad reputation when abused by others.
• Free Proxy Servers Risks It has been found in research (e.g. Free Proxies Unmasked) that a good number of free proxies can be very unreliable, unsafe, or even dangerous.
• In a 30 months investigation, none much more than by way of that only a fraction of free proxies were online more than once, and numerous proxies were susceptible of vulnerabilities or content defining conduct. 

Best Use Cases

• When you only need to unblock a content or test something small.
• When speed is more important than anonymity, and it gets incorrect when using non-critical tasks.
• Ideally better when you can afford paid solutions, but paid-proxies at datacenter are the initial next wise.

9. ProxyEmpire

Most reviews when talking about Bright Data or Oxylabs mention ProxyEmpire as a reasonable substitute, with goodIP pool coverage, a few customers who require middle-performance, decent geo-targeting, or mobile/residential IPs without necessarily paying an enterprise service provider high prices. 

Key Features & Performance

• Services residential and datacenter proxy; choices on rotating and sticky sessions.
• Plan depending on good country and city targeting.
• Appropriate work in most sites; not always best up in high ban localities, but satisfactory and respectable. 

Cost: Plans start from $7/ GB

Trade-Offs

• Very costly often compared to pure datacenter providers with similar numbers of IP due to the residential aspect.
• Certain ones may be laggards with reference to customer support or features over Premium brands.
• There will always be an increase or decrease in speed on the basis of which country / target site on the measures against anti-bot. 

Best Use Cases

• Mid sized scraping, optimization monitoring, retrieval content.
• Users that need a precaution balance between residential IPs yet will not pay the highest price.
• Small companies or higher level users who are not willing to pay premium rates support those options.

10. PacketStream

PacketStream is slightly different, it relies upon peer-to-peer schemes of IP sharing: users share bandwidth/IPs, and people purchase access. This has the ability to be more variable, typically cheaper, at the cost of being variable in speed and latency. It is better apt towards users who desire and can afford cheap access, and are comfortable with a degree of uncertainty or fluctuation. 

Key Features & Performance

• Frequently reduced entrance cost; lowly priced bandwidth/IP compared to numerous premium deliverers.
• Enables rotation of residential IPs of shared source.
• Since it is P2P, the IPs are at times more residential like when done properly.
• PacketStream shows a stability limited performance on peak hours with heavy traffic. 

Cost: Plans start from $1/ GB

Trade-Offs

• Due to the similarity, reliability may not be reliable: at times sluggish or more obstructed.
• Privacy, security can be lesser than the premium players with grand logging / ethical sourcing.
• The force of support and documentation is also less or less successful in most cases. 

Best Use Cases

Minor personal endeavors, experimentation, dabbling in the light stripping, light unblocking.
With price as a key factor, you can put up with some turbulence.
Positive to test then switch to more expensive services.

Table of Comparison

Here’s a comparison table of 10 proxy providers/tools, comparing their key features side by side so you can see strengths, proxy types, ideal uses, etc. Use this to quickly pick which might suit your needs best.

Proxy Providers Comparison Table (10 Tools)

Proxy Provider	Proxy Types	Pricing	Pros	Cons
Bright Data	Residential, Static Residential (ISP), Mobile, Datacenter	$2.50 to $5 per GB	Very good at avoiding anti-bot or geo-locked sites, high reliability with large scale scraping, ad checks, geo-targeting; verifying is very good at geo-targeted ads with large scale scraping.	Difficult to learn; advanced features may be excessive; may need close monitoring of sessions or threads.
Oxylabs	Residential, ISP/static residential, Mobile, Datacenter	$4 per GB	Exceptional work with volume, high uptime, research, data and SEO tools.	It can be expensive; may become over-capacity when usage is small; complicated to set up.
Smartproxy / Decodo	Residential (static and rotating), ISP/static, Mobile, Datacenter.	$0.50 per GB	Hard middle ground; extensible to a variety of procedures (streaming, multiple accounts, moderate scraping)	A little less stealthy compared to the very strict customer of those sites providers; there is slightly less performance and reliability in some areas.
Webshare	Shared and Dedicated datacenter, Residential (rotating and static)	$0 to 0.0299 per GB	Low-end users; nice trial or testing; light and medium-use.	No Follow mode; more likely to get blocked; less features; unreliable speed or latency.
IPRoyal	Mobile, Static / Rotating Spiderman, residential proxies.	$1.75 per GB	Value, good residential and mission duties; good in less industrious work; easy to turn on.	On more secure sites the performance & success of service can also be less; the less-advanced tools/documentation with the best.
SOAX	Reis Trespassado, Mobil, Residencia/isi, Static Mobile.	$2 per GB	Very good: Job involving locality (city/country), mobile behavior; decent: Job involving social media, streaming, app-behavior mimic	Increased price of mobile/residential IPs; there is some latency in some areas; can be sensitive to session reuse.
NetNut	Static Residential (ISP), Residential rotating, Datacenter	$0.45 to 1.59 per GB	Dependable when you require IPs exhibiting like ordinary users; high consistency; less detection on particular sites.	Smallest vs. largest providers; minimal pool size; mobile IPs, greater price of premium residential/ISP IPs; minimal extra compared to enterprise providers.
ProxyEmpire	Datacenter, Mobile, Residential (rotating/static)	$7 per GB	Better with scrapers, search engine optimization, medium to large volumes; more control than microsellers.	Slightly less polished UI/documentation; certain IPs might be flagged; latency potentially fluctuates; not all support is of high quality.
PacketStream	Source of Residential (P2P shared bandwidth), Rotating residential IPs	$1 per GB	poor accessibility to residential IPs; useful in non-critical or experimental applications; useful in testing or infrequent use.	Sharing implies greater variability and risk; latency, and uptime are less predictable; trust and anonymity require the sourcing of peers by the provider.
Datacenter / Budget-focused Proxy Providers	Mainly Datacenter; occasionally these providers provide fixed residential or mixed combinations.	$0 to custom budget for each individual	Fastest, cheapest, uninvolved unblocking, easy work; a variety of tools at low prices.	Medium/large blocking risk / no being caught; reduced anonymity; common reputation risk; lack of support / safety insurances.

How to Choose the Right Proxy Based on Your Needs

Here’s a guide for selecting the proxy servers provider suited for your specific situation:

• IP pool size & geographic coverage: if you need IPs from specific countries or cities, check that the provider supports them.
• Speed & latency: residential/mobile IPs often slower, datacenter faster. If smooth streaming or low lag matters, test.
• Session behavior: rotating vs sticky vs static. Sticky (keeping the same IP) helps when sites track login sessions.
• Protocols supported: HTTP/S, SOCKS5, etc. Some tasks/apps require SOCKS5 or HTTP/S with SSL.
• Pricing model: per-IP, per GB, subscription, pay-as-you-go. For many small users, models that let you scale down cost are preferable.
• Support, compliance, ethics: check logging policy, how IPs are sourced, whether the provider is transparent about legal practices.

Risks & What to Avoid

There is an upside to using proxy services yet threats and pointless traps. One realizes that trouble is to be avoided.

• Free proxies are unsafe: A big scientific study (Free Proxies Unmasked) revealed that a lot of free proxies are unstable, inactive, or even malicious: Traffic can be distorted, information is read and stolen.
• Blocked IPs or flagged IPs: Numerous sites identify data cell center IPs or routed IPs (with a high frequency of rotation or by an area or IP service provider). Applying residential/ISP IPs is helpful, but ineffective.
• Lack of provider transparency: Not all providers make it clear that they will be keeping logs of your use (including the length of logs stored), the source of IPs. This impacts privacy.
• Surprises, cost: When the volume of data used is high and/or if the proxies are dedicated, or proxy usage within a region, cost may be high, much higher than initially anticipated.
• Law/ethical matters: The bypassing of licensing on content, breaking of terms of service, scraping of data that is either personal or copyrighted, or otherwise abusing IP addresses may result in legal or account actions. Make sure that you are aware of the laws in your jurisdiction and target site terms.

Conclusion

In 2025, proxy servers will not become irrelevant–not because of their usefulness to techies, but because they offer privacy, access, and control to an ordinary user. Whether you need to stream, go unnoticed, find out information, or just know your IP is not being followed, the correct proxy provider may change your life on the internet.

FAQs

1. Are proxies safe to use?

Yes (usually), if you choose a reputable provider with secure protocols (HTTPS/SOCKS5), clear privacy policies, and ethical IP sourcing. Free or unknown proxies carry higher risk.

2. Is a VPN the same as a proxy?

No. A VPN encrypts all your traffic (for a device or system) and routes through a server; a proxy redirects specific traffic (browser, app) or only certain ports. VPNs tend to offer more privacy by default; proxies give more control over where your IP appears to be.

3. Do I need residential or mobile proxies?

Only if websites are strict and frequently detect/block “bot-like” or datacenter IPs. Residential or mobile proxies mimic real users, so they’re less likely to be blocked. If your tasks are light or speed matters more, a datacenter might suffice.

4. How much does a good proxy servers cost?

It varies: datacenter proxies might cost a few dollars per IP or per GB; residential/mobile are much more expensive. Premium providers charge high rates for high volume/region specificity. Budget providers or shared proxies are cheaper.

5. Can I use free proxies reliably?

Generally no. Free proxies are often unreliable, insecure, unstable, or flagged. Academic study found many inactive or risky. Only use free for non-critical tasks or testing.

6. How do I test the proxy before buying?

Use free/trial plans if available; test with your target websites or tasks. Check latency, success rates, detectability (CAPTCHA / login blocks). Monitor if it stays up. Always test small before scaling.