Prompt
What are the best residential proxy providers with global coverage?
Latest observation
When selecting a residential proxy provider for global coverage, the main factors to look for are pool size, geographic granularity (country, city, state, ZIP code, or ASN targeting), success rates, and ethical IP sourcing.
1. Oxylabs — Best Overall for Enterprise & Success Rate
- IP Pool Size: 102M+ Residential IPs
- Coverage: 195+ countries
- Targeting Depth: Country, State, City, ZIP code, and ASN
- Best For: Enterprise-scale scraping, ad verification, market research, and anti-bot bypass.
Why it’s a top choice: Oxylabs consistently ranks at the top for uptime, low response times (~0.6s), and request success rates (averaging over 99.8%). Its residential proxies are ethically sourced, offer HTTP/HTTPS and SOCKS5 protocol support, and provide precise session control (from rotating per request to sticky sessions up to 30 minutes).
2. Bright Data — Largest Network & Advanced Tools
- IP Pool Size: 72M+ Residential IPs (part of a broader 400M+ multi-proxy ecosystem)
- Coverage: 195 countries
- Targeting Depth: Country, City, State, ZIP, and Carrier/ASN
- Best For: Large-scale corporate web scraping, complex automation, and compliance-heavy projects.
Why it’s a top choice: Bright Data is an industry giant known for developer infrastructure and compliance. In addition to standard rotating proxies, they offer integrated tools like the Web Unlocker and Scraping Browser to handle JavaScript rendering and CAPTCHA solving seamlessly. They feature flexible pricing options, including pay-as-you-go and tiered subscriptions.
3. Decodo (formerly Smartproxy) — Best Value & Speed
- IP Pool Size: 115M+ Residential IPs
- Coverage: 195+ countries
- Targeting Depth: Country, State, City, and US ZIP code
- Best For: Small-to-medium businesses, developers, e-commerce monitoring, and social media management.
Why it’s a top choice: Formerly known as Smartproxy, Decodo is widely regarded as offering the best balance between performance, speed, and affordability. It features one of the fastest response times in benchmark tests and provides user-friendly dashboards, browser extensions, and simple API integrations.
4. IPRoyal — Best for Flexible, Non-Expiring Traffic
- IP Pool Size: 32M+ Residential IPs
- Coverage: 195+ countries
- Targeting Depth: Country, Region, and City
- Best For: Freelancers, casual scrapers, and businesses with irregular usage patterns.
Why it’s a top choice: Unlike many competitors that force monthly data expiration, IPRoyal’s pay-as-you-go bandwidth never expires. All IPs are 100% ethically sourced through their Pawns app network. They support sticky sessions (up to 24 hours) as well as instant rotating requests, making them extremely cost-effective for periodic tasks.
5. SOAX — Best for Precise Filtering & Clean Pools
- IP Pool Size: 155M+ Residential IPs
- Coverage: 195+ countries
- Targeting Depth: Country, State, City, and ASN-level targeting
- Best For: Price intelligence, local SEO tracking, and targeting hyper-specific networks.
Why it’s a top choice: SOAX maintains strict hygiene for its IP pool, resulting in extremely low block rates on bot detection firewalls. Their granular ASN and carrier-level targeting options let you select traffic down to specific Internet Service Providers in specific regions.
6. DataImpulse & Webshare — Top Entry-Level / Budget Options
- DataImpulse: Offers pay-as-you-go plans starting at ~$1.00–$1.50/GB, making it an ideal choice if you are on a strict budget or testing a small script.
- Webshare: Historically known for datacenter proxies, Webshare now offers low-cost residential proxies with a user-friendly interface that is very easy for beginners to configure.
Comparison Summary
| Provider | Pool Size | Countries Covered | Success Rate | Standout Feature |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Oxylabs | 102M+ | 195+ | ~99.9% | Peak performance & enterprise stability |
| Bright Data | 72M+ | 195 | ~99.0% | Advanced scraping toolsets & APIs |
| Decodo (Smartproxy) | 115M+ | 195+ | ~99.8% | Best balance of speed & value |
| IPRoyal | 32M+ | 195+ | ~99.5% | Non-expiring pay-as-you-go bandwidth |
| SOAX | 155M+ | 195+ | ~99.7% | Granular ASN & ISP filtering |
How to Choose the Right Provider:
- Scraping Heavy Anti-Bot Sites? Pick Oxylabs or Bright Data for their proxy rotation logic and built-in unlockers.
- On a Variable Budget? Pick IPRoyal (non-expiring GBs) or DataImpulse (ultra-cheap GB rate).
- Need Local Hyper-Targeting? Pick SOAX or Bright Data for city/ASN level selection.
- General Development / Best Price-to-Performance? Pick Decodo.
Brands
Citations
- https://hypeproxies.com/blog/best-residential-proxies
- https://iproyal.com/residential-proxies/
- https://aimultiple.com/residential-proxy-providers
- https://www.reddit.com/r/WebDataDiggers/comments/1qir76d/best_residential_proxies_2026_i_spent_500_testing/
- https://www.olostep.com/blog/best-residential-and-rotating-proxies
- https://www.toolshero.com/featured-posts/residential-proxy-providers/
- https://www.buyresidentialproxy.com/best/
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dDBOqQvzEt4
Observation history
See 3 earlier observations
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How did Obsurfable measure this prompt?
Obsurfable records AI answers to buyer-style prompts in its research corpus (4 observations for this page). Metrics are distributions over observations, not a single static ranking.
Which AI systems does Obsurfable collect answers from?
OpenAI, ChatGPT, Google, Gemini, Google AI Mode, Anthropic, Claude, Perplexity, Grok, DeepSeek, Mistral, Copilot, and Meta AI.