10 Best Datacenter Proxy Services of 2023

If you’re familiar with web data extraction or website performance testing you already know how important it is to have a good proxy service while conducting these types of activities. However, you don’t actually have to work in the online space in order to use a proxy service. A lot of people use proxies to hide their identity while browsing the internet or to watch videos that are normally blocked in their country. Those are just a few obvious examples but there are plenty of other uses for proxies.

Proxies act as a gateway between the user and the internet. While browsing with a proxy service active, your location and IP address are hidden from prying eyes. In most cases, you can make it seem like you are accessing the internet from a different country located on the other side of the world if you wanted.

Top Datacenter Proxies Providers

It goes without saying that a tool like this can be very useful, however, not all proxy services were created equally and some are clearly better than others. With that in mind, we took the time to put together a list of reliable data center services that you can count on in 2019. This should make it easier to choose the ideal provider for your specific needs. A quick summary of our picks can be found below but make sure to keep reading for more detailed information on all these companies.

• Smartproxy – Excellent shared data center proxies that support both IP rotation and sticky sessions.
• Bright Data – Arguably the best and most popular provider of data center proxies currently on the market.
• Shifter – Cheap, easy to use shared and dedicated datacenter proxies and amazing performance.
• Oxylabs – The largest network of dedicated data center proxies. Particularly good for web scraping.
• Rayobyte – Small network but offers good performance and very cheap prices.
• Stormproxies – A very reliable US-based service that offers three methods of rotating IPs and a low entry point for dedicated proxies.
• My Private Proxy – MPP Group is a veteran provider that offers great prices for bulk purchases.
• SSL Private Proxy – Versatile provider with 7+ years of experience and many specialized services.
• Proxy-n-VPN – Small pool of IPs but otherwise solid and works exclusively with data center proxies.
• High Proxies – Good for scraping, SEO, and social media. Low entry point.

Remember – We tried our best to make this list as varied as possible. There’s a little something for everybody here so make sure to check out all our entries because the ideal service for you might be at the top of the list.

1. Smartproxy

Smartproxy is another reliable provider that offers both data center and residential proxies, as well as a number of other, more specialized services, such as Instagram proxies, sneaker proxies, and Craiglist proxies, among others. The company has been around for a long time and owns one of the largest networks around, which consists of well over 10 million proxies. Similar to Luminati, most of those IPs are reserved for residential proxy services, with only around 40.000 of those address being located in data centers. That number may not seem that impressive compared to its residential proxies, but 40K addresses definitely give you plenty to work with.

Smartproxy has servers all over Europe and the United States and works exclusively with shared data center proxies. The company offers both rotating data center IPs and sticky sessions, which allow you to hold onto your address for up to 30 minutes. Smartproxy supports HTTP and HTTPS connections, guarantees 99.99% uptime, and includes unlimited threads with all packages. The company also mentions that it has over 100 subnets and that its service is compatible with all the popular scripts and bots.

Get Access to Smartproxy’s Entire Network for a Fixed Monthly Fee

Unlike many other companies that offer data center proxies, Smartproxy charges per traffic usage, as opposed to charging per IP. This means that you can access the company’s entire network for a fixed monthly fee. The entry package costs $50 per month and includes up to 100 GB of traffic, so that’s $0.5 per GB. The basic plan only supports 1 sub-user but you can support between 3 and 10 by going with one of the other packages. It’s also worth noting that you can buy additional traffic at a rate of $1 per GB with the basic plan or between $0.80 and $0.40 per GB with the other packages. Smartproxy offers a 3-day money-back guarantee to all customers.

2. Bright Data

Luminati is an absolute juggernaut when it comes to pretty much any type of proxy service. The company has a very impressive network consisting of more than 40 million proxies at its disposal, about 500.000 of which are located in state-of-the-art data centers. Luminati has more than 1500 subnets at its disposal and offers proxy locations in 85 countries around the world. The provider has an excellent reputation thanks to its ethical business practices, which has allowed it to gain favor with a lot of Fortune 500 enterprises over the years. If you’re not sure which proxy provider to pick, Luminati is always a safe bet.

Luminati offers both shared and dedicated IPs with unlimited bandwidth and an infinite amount of concurrent requests. The company also offers a ‘cooling period’, which is a guaranteed amount of time a certain IP address has not been used to access a specific site. Managing all your IPs is extremely easy here as Luminati offers not just a proxy manager interface but also a Google Chrome extension. In addition to great performance and ease of use, Luminati also takes pride in its very professional and knowledgeable customer support team, which is one of the best in the business.

Very Appealing ‘Pay as You Go’ System

As far as the price is concerned, Luminati is not a cheap option. The company’s services are mainly targeted at big businesses so you can expect some pretty high prices here. However, that only applies to its standard packages, the cheapest of which includes 900 IPs and comes with a $500 per month commitment. Luckily, Luminati also has a ‘pay as you go’ system for data center proxies that will only set you back $0.10 per IP or $0.60 per GB of data and has no monthly commitment. Needless to say, that’s quite a bargain. If you’re still not sure about Luminati, though, you can always check out the company’s free trial and test out its services for yourself.

3. Shifter

Shifter is a great option for users who are looking for fast servers and good worldwide coverage. The company’s proxies are known for their good performance and you can find both shared and dedicated proxy packages here. Shifter has been around for many years and was able to put together a very solid network during all this time. In addition to offering great coverage across Europe and North America, the company also has servers in Asia, Australia, India, and the Middle East.

The provider offers highly anonymous proxies and supports HTTP and HTTPS connections. Users can expect a very straightforward and fast setup process with very little configuration needed. The company only uses non-sequential IPs and has plenty of subnets to choose from across the US. Another nice thing about Shifter is that you can get free new proxies once per month upon request. If you’re not satisfied with the proxies or with the service in general you can contact the company and get a refund within 3 days.

Fairly High Entry Point for Shared Packages

The prices at Shifter are pretty standard and start at $3/mo per proxy for a shared package. The cheapest shared package comes with 10 proxies but it can be easily scaled. If you’re looking to purchase a smaller quantity, you can go for a dedicated proxy package instead. Dedicated proxies cost $5 apiece but you can only buy them in packages of 5, so that’s an investment of just $25.

4. Oxylabs

Oxylabs has one of the largest networks of dedicated proxies on the market right now, exceeding even that of Luminati. The company has over 2 million dedicated proxies in its pool, as well as another 32 million residential ones. Oxylabs has more than 80 data centers and offers proxies in 100+ locations around the globe in countries like the US, UK, India, Russia, Germany, and more. The location coverage here is really good and the company’s proxies are well known for their excellent speed and performance.

The company offers dedicated data center proxies with unlimited bandwidth and an unlimited number of concurrent sessions. You can also expect a 99% uptime guarantee, a quick and easy setup process, username/password authentication, and a very slick user interface. Oxylabs claims that its proxies are particularly good for web scraping, with the company going as far as to help users find clean proxies for the sites they want to scrape. A few other common use cases for the company’s proxies include brand protection, market research, ad verification, and travel fare aggregation.

Very Generous Free Trial to Test Out the Service

Similar to most other companies in this space, Oxylabs charges per IP. The prices here are a bit above average but that is to be expected from a premium provider. The cheapest package will set you back $180 per month and includes 100 IP addresses, so that’s $1.8 per IP. You can get a better deal per IP with some of the other plans (as low as $1.20/IP), however, all the other packages are a lot more expensive. Companies that are looking to purchase significantly large amounts of IPs (25K+) can contact Oxylabs directly for a price estimate. A downside for some users is that Oxylabs’ non-US IPs are a lot more expensive than its US ones. On the bright side, the company offers a 7-day free trial, which is very generous compared to most of its competitors.

5. Rayobyte

Founded by Blazing SEO back in 2015, Rayobyte is a company that offers a pretty wide variety of services. In addition to proxies, here you can also find VPNs, captcha solving services, and even dedicated servers. The company’s network is fairly small but this is offset by the fact that Rayobyte offers top-notch performance. Here you can find both shared and private proxies, along with virgin IPs that come in blocks of 256 for those in need of clean addresses for sensitive tasks like search engine scraping or bulk account registration.

Rayobyte has nine locations and hundreds of subnets to choose from. The service supports HTTP, HTTPS, and SOCKS connections and includes unlimited bandwidth and threads, runs at speeds of up to 1 GB/s, and includes automatic proxy replacements once per month. You can also expect other common features like instant delivery and IP and username/password authentication. Rayobyte offers a 2-day free trial so you can test out the service for yourself for a limited time without spending a penny.

Nearly Unbeatable Prices for Shared Proxies

If you do decide to sign up for the service, you’ll be happy to know that the prices are Rayobyte are quite reasonable. A basic package of shared proxies costs $2.50 per month and includes 5 proxies. That’s just $0.50 per proxy but you can get them even cheaper by subscribing for multiple months in advance. Meanwhile, the cheapest dedicated proxy package will set you back $6 per month and also includes 5 proxies. Rayobyte has a very flexible system that allows you to choose the specific amount of proxies you want to purchase, as opposed to offering traditional packages. The minimum amount is 5 proxies and there doesn’t seem to be an upper limit.

6. Stormproxies

Stormproxies is one of the youngest providers on our list and initially made a name for itself by offering solid backconnect rotating proxies. Nowadays, the company offers a pretty wide range of services, including dedicated proxies for Instagram, Facebook, ticketing sites, and more. Here you can find both residential and data center IPs. The IP pool for data center proxies consists of over 70.000 addresses located mainly in the US and Europe. Stormproxies offers both shared (rotating) and dedicated data center proxies.

The shared proxies are quite popular as they come with three methods of rotating IPs – rotate at every HTTP request, rotate every 3 minutes, and rotate every 15 minutes. This gives users a lot of options to work with and makes the proxies suitable for a wide variety of online activities. Meanwhile, the dedicated proxies are highly anonymous and optimized for maximum performance. These proxies are meant for general use and are not recommended for very specific activities. As mentioned, Stormproxies has other packages for things like accessing sneaker or ticketing sites.

Very Low Entry Point for Dedicated Proxies

A basic package of shared data center proxies will set you back $39 per month and will give you access to the entire network, so no pay per IP system here. However, this package along with the other shared plans comes with other limitations. For instance, the basic package only supports up to 40 simultaneous connections and the service can only be used on a single device. If you’re looking for dedicated proxies, the cheapest plan here goes for $10 per month and includes 5 private proxies, so that’s about $2 per proxy. The plans are limited to 100 threads and only cover US locations.

7. My Private Proxy

My Private Proxy or MPP Group is a well-known provider that has been around for many years. The company’s services are very reliable and include both shared and private proxies. In addition, the provider also offers dedicated proxies for sneaker sites, ticketing sites, and PokemonGo. MPP Group has a pretty impressive network of over 230.000 data center proxies, with dozens of subnets to choose from. A large portion of the data centers are located inside major cities across the US, however, the network also extends into various parts of Europe.

MPP Group includes similar features with both its shared and private proxy packages. Some of the highlights include instant activation, IP and username/password authentication, up to 100 simultaneous connections, highly anonymous IPs, a fully automated control panel, and more. The company also offers a 99% uptime guarantee, unlimited bandwidth, non-sequential IPs, and free monthly replacements (for private proxies) of IPs that no longer work as intended. Customers also benefit from a 3-day money-back guarantee.

Massive Discounts for Bulk Purchases

As far as the pricing is concerned, MPP Group’s services are pretty affordable all things considered. Shared proxies plans start at $50 per month and include 50 proxies, so that’s $1 per proxy. You can get the price down to as little as $0.62 per proxy by going for one of the higher tier packages. The more expensive plans will also give you access to more locations and subnets. As far as the private proxies are concerned, prices here start at $2.49/mo per proxy. That’s a bit expensive, however, you can buy a single proxy here, which will be a major selling point for some people. If you’re looking for a bulk purchase, you’ll be able to get that price down to as little as $1.13 per IP with the high tier packages.

8. SSL Private Proxy

SSL Private Proxy is another veteran provider that offers a wide variety of proxy and VPN related services. The company has been around for more than 7 years at this point and offers not just private and shared proxies but also specialized packages for things like sneaker sites, video games, social media platforms like Instagram or Snapchat, and more. SSL Private Proxy has a network consisting of over 120.000 dedicated IPs, with data centers located in 40 cities across North America and Europe.

SSL Private Proxy supports both HTTP and HTTPS connections, offers highly anonymous proxies, and a monthly randomization feature. Other highlights include IP whitelisting and username/password authentication, non-sequential IPs, unlimited bandwidth, and an advanced control panel. You can access multiple cities and subnets regardless of whether you choose a shared or private data center proxies package. In addition to the regular advantages you get from private proxies, here they are also optimized for SEO, search engine scraping, YouTube, and social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr.

Get a Great Deal by Paying for Multiple Months in Advance

The prices at SSL Private Proxy are pretty competitive, with basic shared hosting packages going for $11.10 per month. The entry plan includes 10 proxies, so that’s $1.1/mo per proxy. Meanwhile, private proxies are a bit more expensive and start at $15 per month for the basic package, which comes with 5 proxies. Similar to most of its competitors, SSL Private Proxy will give you a better price per proxy if you buy one of the more expensive packages. In addition, the company also offers pretty substantial discounts if you pay several months in advance. In other words, you can look forward to some really good prices if you decide to stick with this provider for the long haul.

9. Proxy-n-VPN

Proxy-n-VPN is a very solid provider that works exclusively with data center proxies. The company puts a lot of emphasis on privacy and security so you can expect a high degree of anonymity with these proxies. The company’s network consists of around 10.000 dedicated IP addresses, so the pool is a bit smaller compared to other companies. However, the IPs are stored in state-of-the-art data centers and the company owns 100% of its inventory so you can look forward to good performance and reliability. Proxy-n-VPN offers both shared and private data center proxies.

Some of the features you can expect here include unlimited bandwidth, non-sequential IPs, a 99.99% uptime guarantee, and speeds of up to 1GB/s. All the proxies are highly anonymous and you can easily manage everything by using the intuitive control panel. The company has good location coverage, with servers placed all across North America and parts of Europe. If you’re unsatisfied with the service for any reason, you can take advantage of the 3-day money-back guarantee refund policy offered by the company.

You Can Purchase Anywhere Between 1 and 1000 Proxies

Proxy-n-VPN’s prices are on par with many of the other companies on this list. Namely, a starter package of shared data center proxies costs $11 per month and includes 10 proxies. That’s a little over $1 per proxy but you can get a much better deal by opting for one of the larger packages that come with 500 or 1000 proxies. Meanwhile, a private data center proxy will set you back $2.35 per month if you go with the basic plan. Similar to MPP Group, Proxy-n-VPN gives users the option of buying a single proxy but you can expect significant discounts for bulk purchases, especially if you order one of the large packages.

10. High Proxies

High Proxies offers reliable services at competitive prices and operates across most of the United States and Europe, among other regions. The company has a network of around 25.000 IPs spread across a few dozen different locations. High Proxies has a number of useful services, including shared and private proxies, VPNs, and special dedicated proxy packages for social media and ticketing sites. High Proxies is considered a premium provider but its prices are actually similar to many of the other companies on this list.

The service isn’t really recommended for sneaker sites but you can use the proxies for pretty much everything else. SEO, scraping, and social media are some of the most common use cases here. All proxy packages come with unlimited bandwidth, monthly randomization, IP whitelisting, and a 99% uptime guarantee. Most plans also allow users to choose between multiple cities and subnets. The only exception to this is the basic private proxy plan.

The Cheapest Price for Single-Proxy Packages

Like many of the companies on this list, High Proxies allows users to purchase single private proxies, which explains the limitations I mentioned earlier. A private proxy costs $2.30 here but you can also buy them in bulk and take advantage of some pretty nice discounts in the process. As far as the shared proxies are concerned, the price starts at $10.90 per month for the cheapest package that comes with 10 proxies. Once again, you can get a better price per package by going with one of the more expensive tiers.

Data Center vs Residential vs Mobile Proxies

Proxies can be split into three categories based on where the IP addresses are coming from. A data center proxy service uses IPs that are generated and stored in data centers belonging to big companies like Digital Ocean or AWS (Amazon Web Services). However, many of the major data center proxy providers actually own their own data centers and don’t rely on third-party companies. These types of IPs are often (but now always) static, sequential, and are also used for other types of services like VPNs, dedicated servers, cloud servers, and more.

Unlike data center proxies, residential and mobile proxies are usually not static (rotating) and are not stored in a single central location. Rather, these services use pools of addresses assigned to real users by their internet service providers or mobile carriers. Residential and mobile proxy services often use P2P networks that consist of IP addresses given voluntarily by users, generally in exchange for free access to certain services.

Pros and Cons of Data Center Proxies

Pros:

Speed and Performance: These types of proxies are often part of huge data centers that power countless websites and businesses. This, combined with their static nature, gives data center proxies a clear edge over other types of proxy servers when it comes to speed and performance.

Availability: Datacenter proxies are plentiful and are always extremely easy to find. There are countless companies out there that sell them so all you need to do is find the one that works best for your particular needs.

Price: Datacenter proxies are also the cheapest of the bunch. Unlike residential and mobile proxies where you pay for GB of traffic usage, data center proxy providers generally allow users to pay per IP. This makes data center proxies both affordable and convenient as it’s not uncommon to find companies that only charge $1 (or less) per IP and a lot of the time there’s no lower limit on how many you can buy.

Cons:

Easier to Detect That Other Proxies: The static nature of data center proxies allows them to shine when it comes to performance but it also makes them easier to detect. Some websites will be able to figure out very quickly if you’re using a data center IP, which makes these services unsuitable for certain activities. It’s worth mentioning that most websites won’t really take any action against those who use data center IPs, but in some cases, they will.

Easier to Blacklist: Datacenter proxies raise red flags for certain types of websites, especially ticketing and sneaker sites. Many of these websites go out of their way to blacklist proxies and data center IPs are usually their first target because they are the easiest to track. You can circumvent this to some degree by signing up with a provider that works with multiple data centers. However, a lot of these companies admit that their proxies will likely not work on ticketing and sneaker sites regardless.

Types of Data Center Proxies

While other types of proxies sometimes come in three variants, data center proxies are only available in two – dedicated and shared. Purchasing a dedicated proxy will guarantee that you will be the only person able to use it for the duration of your subscription. This isn’t the case with shared proxies. True to their name, these proxies are shared between multiple users.

Shared proxies are usually assigned to 3-5 people but there are companies that allow many more users to share the same proxy. This makes shared proxies less reliable than dedicated ones, however, the advantage is that they tend to be a lot cheaper as a result.

Data Center Proxies Use Cases:

Web Scraping: Datacenter proxies aren’t ideal for web scraping but they can be used with some degree of success for this purpose if you know what you’re doing. The secret is to avoid biting off more than you can chew. If you’re trying to scrape large amounts of data from big websites like Amazon or LinkedIn you probably won’t get very far because major companies have systems in place to prevent that and, once again, data center proxies are the easiest to detect. If you stick to smaller websites, however, you should have no problems scraping data.

Creating Multiple Accounts: There are a lot of platforms out there that won’t allow you to create more than one account from the same IP address. Some people use VPNs to circumvent this but doing so is often not worth it because virtual private networks can be fairly expensive. Residential proxies are another viable option, however, they can be unreliable for this particular purpose because of their rotating nature. I recommend instead using data center proxies on these sites because they’re cheap and it will seem like you’re logging in from the same location every time, which won’t raise suspicions.

Website Performance Testing: Datacenter proxies can provide you with an excellent way of testing the performance of your website from different locations around the world. Just because your site works smoothly for you, it doesn’t necessarily mean that a person halfway around the globe will have the same experience, so it’s always important to test things out. While you’re at it, you can also test any ads you may have on your website using a data center proxy.

Accessing Geo-Restricted Content: Platforms like YouTube and Netflix generally don’t care about what type of IP you are using, so you shouldn’t have any problems accessing geo-restricted content on these types of websites. In fact, data center proxies are ideal in this case because you can stream the content without having to worry about any performance issues.

Where to Find the Best Data Center Proxies?

It can be quite difficult for new users to find good data center proxies because of the sheer number of companies that offer these types of services. As its often the case with these things, some companies are a lot better than others, so it always pays to do a bit of research before you decide to sign up with a provider of data center proxies.

But where do you find the best? A quick Google search will put you on the right track but you have to be careful because you’re likely to find a lot of companies in the search results that don’t actually offer data center proxies. Don’t worry, though, because we already did all the heavy lifting for you. We checked out and tested some of the most popular data center proxy services around and have ranked them all neatly in the list above. All you have to do is pick the one that works best for you.

F.A.Q.

Where Can I Use Data Center Proxies?

Generally speaking, you can use proxies on most types of applications that support HTTP/HTTPS connections. Some companies also offer support for the SOCKS protocol, which gives you a few additional options to work with.

Can I Use Datacenter Proxies on Sneaker Sites?

It is recommended not to use general-purpose data center proxies for this activity. Datacenter proxies are meant for other purposes like viewing geo-blocked content or website performance testing, among other things. However, some providers do offer dedicated data center proxy packages that are suitable for sneaker sites, so keep an eye out for those.

What’s the Difference Between Data Center Proxies and Residential Proxies?

In short, data center proxies use IP addresses that are stored in data centers while residential proxies use addresses that belong to regular consumers. Residential IPs are assigned by internet service providers while data center IPs are created in data centers by the companies that own the servers.

What’s the Difference Between Shared and Private Proxies?

Buying a private proxy will ensure that you are the only person with access to it for the duration of your subscription. In the case of shared proxies, the provider gives multiple users access to the same proxy. This makes private proxies a safer, albeit more expensive, option for users who value their privacy.

Can I Test Proxy Service Before I Commit to a Purchase?

These days it’s becoming rarer and rarer to find companies that allow users to test their proxies for free because they can be easily abused. However, some of the big providers like Luminati and Oxylabs still offer free trials, though these only tend to last for a few days.

Final Thoughts

Datacenter proxies are great for those who value performance and affordability over all else. These types of proxies are a bit more limited in some ways compared to residential and mobile proxies, however, they can still be used for a lot of online activities. If you use data center proxies for their intended purpose, you’ll find that these services have plenty to offer. But even if you’re not interested in things like web scraping or performance testing, data center proxies can provide you with a simple and cheap way of protecting your identity while browsing the internet.

Although there’s no shortage of data center proxy services nowadays, we urge you to be cautious about which company you sign up with. Only a relatively small percentage of providers can actually be considered trustworthy. The 10 companies we covered in this article were handpicked precisely so you won’t have to worry about their legitimacy as they are all well-known names in the industry. Although we decided to go with a ranked list, all the providers we listed offer fantastic services.

Our personal recommendation is Smartproxy if you’d like to test out the datacenter proxies without spending a fortune or if you’re looking for bulk purchases. Otherwise, I’d go with something a bit more expensive like Bright Data or something like Shifter since it offers single datacenter proxy packages.