Proxy Service / Server
Proxy services act as intermediary servers while receiving resources from web pages. Clients seeking resources send a request to the proxy service and the proxy service gets requested resources from the provider on behalf of the client. +Show More
Sources
AIMultiple uses these data sources for ranking solutions and awarding badges in proxy services:
Proxy Service Leaders
According to the weighted combination of 4 metrics
What are proxy service
customer satisfaction leaders?
Taking into account the latest metrics outlined below, these are the current proxy service customer satisfaction leaders:
Which proxy service solution provides the most customer satisfaction?
AIMultiple uses product and service reviews from multiple review platforms in determining customer satisfaction.
While deciding a product's level of customer satisfaction, AIMultiple takes into account its number of reviews, how reviewers rate it and the recency of reviews.
- Number of reviews is important because it is easier to get a small number of high ratings than a high number of them.
- Recency is important as products are always evolving.
- Reviews older than 5 years are not taken into consideration
- older than 12 months have reduced impact in average ratings in line with their date of publishing.
What are proxy service
market leaders?
Taking into account the latest metrics outlined below, these are the current proxy service market leaders:
Which one has collected the most reviews?
AIMultiple uses multiple datapoints in identifying market leaders:
- Product line revenue (when available)
- Number of reviews
- Number of case studies
- Number and experience of employees
- Social media presence and engagement
What are proxy service feature leaders?
Taking into account the latest metrics outlined below, these are the current rpa software feature leaders.
Which one offers the most features?
Bright Data Proxies & Scrapers, Smartproxy Proxies & Scrapers, Nimble offer the most feature complete products.
What are the most mature proxy services?
Which one has the most employees?
Which proxy service companies have the most employees?
20 employees work for a typical company in this solution category which is 3 less than the number of employees for a typical company in the average solution category.
In most cases, companies need at least 10 employees to serve other businesses with a proven tech product or service. 32 companies with >10 employees are offering proxy services. Top 3 products are developed by companies with a total of 1k employees. The largest company in this domain is Bright Data with more than 1000 employees. Bright Data provides the proxy service solution: Bright Data Proxies & Scrapers
Insights
What are the most common words describing proxy services?
This data is collected from customer reviews for all proxy service companies. The most positive word describing proxy services is “Easy to use” that is used in 10% of the reviews. The most negative one is “Expensive” with which is used in 2% of all the proxy service reviews.
What is the average customer size?
According to customer reviews, most common company size for proxy service customers is 1-50 Employees. Customers with 1-50 Employees make up 85% of proxy service customers. For an average Proxies & scrapers solution, customers with 1-50 Employees make up 74% of total customers.
Customer Evaluation
These scores are the average scores collected from customer reviews for all proxy services. Proxy Services are most positively evaluated in terms of "Customer Service" but falls behind in "Likelihood to Recommend".
Where are proxy service vendors' HQs located?
Trends
What is the level of interest in proxy services?
This category was searched on average for 165k times per month on search engines in 2024. This number has decreased to 0 in 2025. If we compare with other proxies & scrapers solutions, a typical solution was searched 30.5k times in 2024 and this decreased to 0 in 2025.
Learn more about Proxy Services
A proxy server is an intermediate application between a client, which makes request, and the target server, which provides the requested information.
Proxy servers can be categorized based on factors such as IP source, number of users sharing an IP address, and proxy anonymity level. There are different types of proxies, including:
- Residential proxies: Residential proxy is a type of proxy server that uses IP addresses assigned by internet service providers (ISPs).
- Datacenter proxies: Datacenter proxies use IP addresses provided by a cloud-based data center.
- SOCKS proxies: SOCKS proxy servers utilize Transmission Control Protocol (TCP) connection to estanblish secure connection between a client and the target web server. There are two versions of SOCKS proxies- SOCKS4 and SOCKS5.
- HTTP proxies: HTTP proxies, also referred to as a web proxy, transmit HTTP ans HTTPS requests and responses.
- Forward proxies: Forward proxies place between a client and a host server, makes requests on behalf of the client. This is the most common type of proxy, includes residential and datacenter proxies.
- Reverse proxies: Unlike forward proxies, reverse proxies sits in front of web servers, providing an additional additional layer of protection againts malicious activities.
A proxy server acts as an gateway between client (computer or smartphone) and the target web server (website). Here's the simplified process of how a proxy server works:
- Client makes a request: Sends a request to the proxy server.
- Proxy server receives the request: Instead of sending the request directly to the website, the proxy server processes the request and conceals the client's IP address by assigning a different proxy from its proxy pool.
- Proxy server forwards the request to the target website: The proxy service transmits the client's connection request to the target server using its own IP address instead of the client's.
- Target website reponds to the proxy server: The proxy server shields the client's real identity from the target web server. The web server provides the requested information, thinking it's communicating directly with the actual client.
- Proxy server forwards the provided data to the client: The proxy server receives and forwards the data to the client's device.
Proxies can be used for a variety of uses:
- Web scraping: Prevent IP addresses from being detected and blocked by the target website.
- Avoiding geographical restrictions: Provide access blocked web sources and bypass geo-restrictions by routing the traffic through a different server.
- Anonymity: Mask users' real IP addresses and assign a different one from its own proxy pool.
The number of proxies you need depends of your specific requeirements and purposes. There are a few factors that can influence the number of proxies you need, if you:
- Are dealing with a high volume of traffic, you might need multiple proxy servers.
- Intend to access and gather data from web sources that have geographical restrictions, you may require proxies located in different regions.
- Scrape data on a large-scale, you need multiple proxies to rotate between IP addresses.
Free proxies may be sufficient for personal use but they may pose significant security issues for commercial use. Here are some of the reasons why you should avoid using them for your business:
- Tend to be slower and less reliable
- Risk of traffic monitoring
- Lack the robust security measures
- Possibiltiy of receiving malware-ridden ads
The short answer is no. While both VPNs and proxies provide anonymity by hiding users' IP addresses, they function differently. VPNs route all your internet traffic through an encrypted tunnel. Proxies work on a per-application level, handling the traffic of a particular application.
A proxy server conceals your network activity and transmits data between your device and the target website on your behalf. On the other hand, a firewall acts as a security barrier between an internal network and a public network. Proxy servers operate at the application layer. This means they can handle traffic for specific applications. Firewalls operate network & transport layer, meaning they monitor traffic based on IP or protocol.