Oxylabs competes with alternatives like Bright Data and Smartproxy in the corporate client market. It is now the top-rated proxy service we have covered on our blog and is one of our recommendations as the Best Proxy provider of 2024.
These two facts show that Oxylabs is a solid choice, possibly even for smaller enterprises requiring high-quality infrastructure.
In this Oxylabs review, we will cover Oxylabs’ key offerings and compare them to the competition. You will discover thorough benchmarks of performance gathered from weeks of testing, along with a general overview. Let us take a look at it!
Oxylabs Review 2024
You would be correct in assuming many proxy service providers operate on the law’s fringes. However, Oxylabs makes a determined effort to explain how it differs from other providers.
With over 100 million proxies circulating across 195 nations, the origin of any one proxy will always be immediately apparent. The website claims they are obtained legitimately from “vetted vendors that are under stringent duties to tell end-users about their membership in a proxy network and acquire consent from them. “
Given its high price tag, steeper-than-average learning curve, and initial investment and bandwidth requirements, Oxylabs might not fit individual and small-team endeavors. However, if you need a top-tier provider and plan to make good use of the service’s many capabilities, such as its vast list of distinct proxy types, Oxylabs should be at the top of your list of potential proxy service providers.
What is Oxylabs?
Founded in 2015, Oxylabs is a Lithuanian proxy service provider. It has become one of the largest companies in the industry, providing a wide range of proxy services and several data-collecting APIs that enable scraping practically any target.
Oxylabs primarily caters to corporate clientele. Everything reflects this, including a neat and orderly website, a list of certificates on the homepage, and a specific account manager. Its goods even have insurance, which is the first for a proxy company. You will, however, pay more than average costs as a result.
This focus on businesses suggests that Oxylabs wants to tie you to a lengthy contract and develop your connection through account managers. However, the supplier has recently begun to open up its platform and place more importance on self-service.
What do Oxylabs offer?
Oxylabs puts a lot of effort into upholding ethical business practices. You can view our discussions on proxy ethicality and KYC criteria. The provider has created a methodology for ethical proxy collection and is an active member of the Ethical Web Data Collection Initiative. Through initiatives like 4beta, Oxylabs additionally collaborates with governmental and nonprofit institutions.
1) Oxylabs Datacenter Proxies
Over 2 million IPs from almost 8,000 subnets make up one of the world’s most extensive networks of datacenter Proxies under the management of Oxylabs. There are two categories of products available for purchase:
- Dedicated proxy lists for your exclusive usage.
- Multiple locations are shared by hundreds of rotating proxy pool addresses.
Features
The dedicated datacenter proxies from Oxylabs appear remarkable. They can specify cities and states, support SOCKS5, come from more than 150 places, and have almost no restrictions. Their only disadvantage is that there is no rotation, although the provider’s Proxy Rotator add-on can also fix it.
Using a pool of 2 million IP addresses, you can scale as much as you need. Additionally, this guarantees significant IP variety, which is always appreciated for preventing ASN—and subnet-related prohibitions.
The US has 10,000 IPs, which is the center of the rotating proxies. Most Asian countries have 1,000, compared to 2,000 in Western European nations, including the UK and France.
Because the service is designed for web scraping, it may generate sessions with a set time limit or modify IP addresses with every connection request. In contrast to the dedicated proxies, there is no SOCKS5 or city-level tracking.
Performance Benchmarks
The rotating proxy pool, along with 100 dedicated US proxies from Oxylabs, was last tested in January 2024.
The rotating proxy network from Oxylabs performed wonderfully. Even if you scrape nonstop, its infrastructure shouldn’t interfere with your data extraction process. Additionally, these rotating proxies are the fastest we have tried, outperforming every rival in our yearly market research.
A combination of dedicated and rotational IPs should be practical for operations that require a lot of traffic, such as streaming video. Both products showed Similar findings: excellent performance and acceptable latency. The specialized proxies had some advantages, but the difference was insignificant at this size.
2) Oxylabs Residential proxies
The most residential proxies on the marketplace are under Oxylabs’ control each month; this number is over 100 million. They are obtained through collaborations with other app developers and the bandwidth-sharing application Honeygain.
Features
It offers a wide range of features. In addition to picking up any country, you can specify a state, a city, or a ZIP code. The latter choice is provided by very few companies. Although it’s limited to specific clients, ASN targeting is also an option.
These rely on the endpoint:port format, just like most residential proxy servers. You can create a sticky session lasting up to 30 minutes or rotate IP addresses with each connection attempt. Customers of Oxylabs in China receive two different ends for better connectivity.
Residential proxies will begin to back up the SOCKS5 protocol. It is currently restricted to TCP and webpage traffic. One more important detail: Oxylabs restricts access to Google with this device.
Performance Benchmarks
In Jan 2024, we last examined Oxylabs’ residential proxies. It is clear from this that Oxylabs can support its marketing promises. In the unprocessed gateway, 3 out of 4 requests provided us with a distinct IP address, and we discovered over 250k American IPs.
Oxylabs generated over 30,000 IP addresses, including in Australia, wherein proxies are easy to find. Even if this isn’t the best outcome when only considering the unprocessed gateway, Oxylabs, and Smartproxy were first in each individual country pool:
These residential proxies operate amazingly well. The infrastructure of Oxylabs rarely failed us, and its latency for residential locations was exceptional. In our tests, the service was consistently more rapid than any opponent, often by a factor of seven!
All of the tested websites could be easily accessed using the home proxies. They, unfortunately, cannot work with Google, but this is more of a managerial than a technical restriction.
3) Oxylabs Mobile Proxies
On cellular networks, Oxylabs has control over 20 million IPs each month. This may be the most extensive mobile proxy service we are aware of. Because it is built on a peer-to-peer network, your links will be forwarded through the equipment of actual individuals.
Features
The mobile proxy network supports many features that clients might be interested in. After choosing any nation, You may filter proxies by area or ASN (carrier). The only thing lacking is city-level targeting, and for those who require it, perhaps ZIP code filtering.
They must rotate since they are peer-to-peer proxies. You may choose whether to create sessions or do it for each connection attempt. You may employ as many IP addresses simultaneously as you’d like because there is no restriction on parallel connections.
Oxylabs just recently made the SOCKS5 protocol available. It only allows web traffic over TCP, though. It’s also critical to be aware that the provider automatically restricts Google.
Performance Benchmarks
In Jan 2024, we last examined Oxylabs’ mobile proxies. The mobile proxy pool from Oxylabs is sizable and reliable. The network must be comparatively safe and capable of accommodating even massive tasks because the US has over 70,000 distinct IP addresses. Additionally, Oxylabs has more IPs in significant European cities than any other provider we examined.
The mobile proxy networks had an industry-standard high connection success rate. Additionally, it frequently outpaced the competitors by a factor of many. A close second was Smartproxy.
The target benchmarks mirrored the infrastructure outcomes of Oxylabs; therefore, they were effective. Amazon was the only website that gave the provider trouble, largely because of timeouts.
4) Web scraping APIs
Oxylabs also supplies four web scraping APIs in addition to proxy servers. They can go back pages simply by making an API call; the provider handles retries, JavaScript rendering, and anti-bot systems. The all-purpose API from Oxylabs can scrape any page, but it can’t parse data. The other three solutions concentrate on e-commerce, real estate, and search engine websites.
Features
In the feature section, the scrapers are very piled up. They can be integrated as an API for getting data over a public connection, you can construct task IDs to get results anytime you need them (this supports request batching), or you could use the endpoint:port format to operate in place of a proxy server.
Oxylabs may deliver queries from any nation with the required precision (usually Google) up to the city and coordinate levels as a proxy service. You can alter the base API call with several options, such as changing the user agent or requesting that JavaScript be rendered.
There isn’t a mechanism to create sessions, pass unique cookies, or communicate with the website; thus, the options are limited.
Additionally, there are outcomes for specific targets. Some websites may have several scrapers, such as Amazon or Google. Use an endpoint, for instance, to access Google photos, reviews, or product pages on Amazon. The scrapers can accept a search term or a product ASIN rather than the complete URL because they contain customized settings (such as page language for Google).
The variety of web pages that Oxylabs can analyze is one of its advantages. Google and perhaps some Amazon properties are structured around many similar offerings. However, one supplier keeps parsers up to date for six significant online businesses, and there’s also an AI-based application that tries to organize whatever e-commerce page you toss at it.
The crawler and scheduler are the final two unique features. Oxylabs provides the resources to schedule scraping jobs or crawl various levels or URLs without building your own implementation. This might result in significant time savings.
Performance Benchmarks
We last put Oxylabs’ scrapers to the test for our study on online scraping APIs in Jan 2024. During the testing period, the web scraping API’s success rate was (almost) faultless, with only a small number of queries being unsuccessfully processed. Additionally, it produced results quickly, especially when data processing was turned on.
Amazon also had a 100% success rate. Despite Amazon’s bigger page sizes, Oxylabs’ APIs provided information faster than while scraping Google. Yet again, the API was successful every time, demonstrating that Oxylabs has a well-organized web scraping infrastructure.
Response time wasn’t as quick this time, though. The API presumably had to try more than once to reach GraphQL, and starting up browsers in the headless test made things much slower.
Pros and Cons of Oxylabs
Pros
- Large varieties of proxy pools with 195 countries
- Free trial available
- Intelligent web scraping methods
- Wide variety of goods and services
Cons
- Steep learning curve
- No direct support through phone
- Above average pricing
How much does Oxylabs cost?
Regarding pricing, If you require at least 100 IPs in the US, Oxylabs’ cost is competitive for a premium provider. Otherwise, until you scale up, its prices are more than typical. 20% of the proxies can be replaced each quarter without cost, thanks to Oxylabs.
A subscription-based pricing structure is used for both dedicated and rotating proxies. After the billing cycle, it renews itself automatically. Oxylabs’ dedicated service rates are determined by how many IPs you receive.
The least expensive proxies are in the US, whereas prices in other nations might increase by as much as 66%. Additionally, a different rate can be applicable for specific targets. This product doesn’t offer self-service, so its pricing is a little hazy.
Oxylabs currently follows the “Pay as you go” model for residential and mobile proxies, meaning you only have to pay depending on the traffic you use. Their Rotating Proxies start at $15, and their mobile proxies are priced at $22. You also get monthly payment subscriptions for the following services:
- Rotating ISP Proxies: $340 per month
- Shared Data Proxies: $50 per month
- Dedicated Datacenter Proxies: $180 per month
- SOCKS5 Proxies: $15 per month
This service is much easier to pick up, as you can go and buy a plan without dealing with salespeople. To know more about the proxy plans and pricing details for their Scraper API and Advance Proxy Tools, visit the Oxylabs official website.
Any Alternatives to Oxylabs?
If Oxylabs is in your price range, Smartproxy should be your next stop. It has excellent user experience, comparable performance, and proxy-based features. Fewer features, though. The primary rival of Oxylabs in the premium market is Bright Data. More functionality, potent proxy tools for management, and comprehensive pre-scraped data sets are also available.
About Smartproxy
Smartproxy is a rotating residential proxy network that gathers and analyzes data from several websites using a network of over 10 million rotating proxies.
It enables you to access even the most limited resources in any nation without the risk of being blacklisted or having your IP address compromised. Residential proxies and IPv4 addresses are available through this reliable and speedy internet service in more than 238 nations and territories.
Click Here to read our detailed Smartproxy Review.
About Bright Data
Bright Data is a proxy service geared toward enterprises. It offers businesses a platform for automatic online data collecting, enabling them to acquire current data-driven business insights suited to their firm’s requirements. Bright Data enables these companies to do market research, obtain competition intelligence, and make data-driven decisions to build and protect their brands.
Click Here to read our detailed Bright Data Review.
Further Read:
- Proxy vs. VPN: What Is the Difference?
- Best Shopify Proxies for Auto Checkout Bots
- Best ISP Proxies (#1 Pick)
- Best Sneaker Proxies with Location Targeting
- Best Craigslist Proxies for Posting & Scraping
- Best Twitter Proxies (Our #1 Pick)
- Best India Proxy Providers (Free & Paid)
- Fastest Dedicated Private Proxies
Conclusion: Oxylabs Review – Should you go for it?
Due to its hefty beginning fees, bandwidth expenses, and above-average learning curve, Oxylabs is overkill for the majority of small-scale and freelancer projects.
Oxylabs must be at the top of your list of potential proxy providers if you’re looking for one of the finest and plan on taking advantage of its features, including a thorough list of various proxy types.
It’s not the service that requires you to just put something in your shopping cart, pay for it, and leave with a flimsy instruction booklet. Here, business is being discussed delicately, elegantly, and directly.
You will establish connections with genuine people who will pay attention to your requirements, remember your name, and try to keep you happy. You’ll get fantastic service and, most importantly, dependable service.
Both the scraping tool and the proxies are of the highest caliber. To put it briefly, you will be in good hands.
You will be required to pay extra in return. Additionally, some items necessitate experiencing the entire sales process, which is fine for large corporations but may be too much for smaller ones.
With more advanced plans, the pricing seems much more appealing, but at that point, we’re talking about 1TB of data or 5,000 IPs.
It all comes down to two considerations: Will you fully utilize it and require the most efficient proxy service on the market? If so, you may have just discovered a proxy provider.
