In this article, we are going to cover everything related to rotating proxies; what they are, how they work, what you can use them for, and of course, what are the best-rotating proxy providers.
Rotating proxies are a kind of proxies that changes the IP address being used (automatically). Usually, it happens every few minutes that are defined beforehand or at every request which allows you to avoid being banned or blocked by IP-based restrictions or CAPTCHA used by websites.
Rotating proxies will usually be mobile proxies, datacenter proxies, or residential proxies.
Rotating proxies are connected to a pool of proxies – different proxy servers with different IP addresses.
When you send a request using a rotating proxy, the server automatically chooses one IP address randomly from the proxy pool and uses it to route the request. Next time you’ll send a request, the same thing will happen – the server will choose another, different, IP from the pool to route the request. The same thing will happen every time you’ll send a request… get the idea?
You’d want to use rotating proxies for multiple purposes such as web scraping, data mining, SEO monitoring, social media management, and online advertising.
Not all rotating proxies are the same! some are more reliable than others. Some providers have better-rotating proxies than others. We’re here to help! Let’s cover everything you need to know about rotating proxies.
As mentioned above, there are a few use cases for rotating proxies. Just for the sake of being able to create a list of important things to consider before buying a rotating proxy, we used the case of data collection which the requirements for fit most use cases.
It’s time to see what providers offer the best value-for-money solution when it comes to rotating proxies. In a hurry? check out this table instead of going over the whole list.
Provider | Proxy types | Number of IPs | Rotation settings | Targeting options | Concurrent connections | Pricing |
Smartproxy | residential & shared datacenter | 40M residential proxies | every request, 1, 10, 30 mins | every country, US states, 8 cities | unlimited | from $12.5 for 1 GB |
Oxylabs | residential, datacenter, ISP, and mobile | Over 100 million | every request, 10, 30 mins | every country & city, ASN | unlimited | From $15 for 1 GB |
Bright Data | shared datacenter, residential, ISP, mobile | 70M residential proxies | highly customizable | every country & city, carrier, ASN | unlimited | From $15 for 1 GB |
Netnut | residential, ISP & shared datacenter | over 20 million | every request | 150+ countries | unlimited | From $20 for 1 GB |
Zyte | shared datacenter | Unknown | automatic rotation | 12 countries + more on demand | 50-200 based on the plan | From $29 for 50k requests |
SOAX | residential and mobile | 8.5 million | 90 seconds to as long as available | 100+ countries, city & ASN targeting | 300-600 ports | From $99 for 8GB ($12.38/GB) and 300 ports |
Infatica | residential | 10M residential proxies | 1 hour (+ manual rotation) | 100+ countries, city targeting | unlimited | From $96/8GB |
IPRoyal | residential | 2,000,000 | every request to 24 hours | city | unlimited | From $7/GB |
Storm Proxies | shared datacenter and residential | 700,000 | every request, 3, 15 mins | US, EU, worldwide | up to 400 ports | From $39 for 40 threads |
Great balance between price and features
Overall rating: 9/10
Smartproxy is probably the only provider of rotating proxies that combines quality and affordable prices. Worldwide locations, the ability to target them, proxies you rely on and affordable prices place Smartproxy first on the list. Add to that the ability to choose between rotating residential or shared datacenter IPs and you have a winning formula.
It doesn’t end there, any plan gives you access to the full proxy pool, Smartproxy lets you use unlimited connections, and offers an API and wide manuals to assist with most integrations.
Best premium rotating proxies provider
Overall rating: 8.5/10
Oxylab’s main business is residential IPs, but they also provide rotating datacenter, mobile proxies, and ISP. They pride themselves on being B2B oriented and so assign an account manager to clients, know their whereabouts in web scraping, and maintain their IP infrastructure. They might be the more expensive choice but nonetheless are very recommended thanks to their premium approach, which includes offering more than 100M rotating proxies!
Oxylabs took its support to the next level, making sure there are no unsolved issues left. We can confidently say that in addition to offering premium rotating proxies with great support, they also offer amazing educational pieces and their YouTube channel is a great start for every newbie.
Many options to choose from.
Overall rating: 8/10
Bright Data has to be included in this list – residential proxies are obvious but you can choose from mobile proxies, rotating datacenter IPs, and ISP proxies. They also have a powerhouse in their proxy manager. The bottom line is that many boxes are ticked with them.
It is worth mentioning that Bright Data’s KYC policies are very strict and you might find yourself defending your legit use case (if it’s not legit, well, we can’t help you there).
Pricing with Bright Data can be high as well, they offer a pay-as-you-go plan, and extra features will cost you. Still, it’s a premium solution with the most stable rotating proxies network.
Great choice for high volume data scraping
Overall rating: 8/10
Although a small provider, Netnut makes this list at number 4. They offer residential proxies and datacenter for search intelligence, general web scraping, and price comparison. recently they introduced peer-to-peer residential IP and wider pricing plans to keep up with the ever-changing market. You do have to bear in mind that their rotating proxies are best used for scraping at a high scale.
We have to be honest – not a top-of-the-range dashboard which IS good for stats, not much documentation, and lack of features in smaller plans like IP whitelisting, and a dedicated account manager leaves us wanting more.
The flexible choice
Overall rating: 7.5/10
SOAX offers you residential and mobile proxies. They have an impressive pool of IPs to choose from, cover most of the geo-locations, and even give you the option to choose up to the ASN and city level! Rotation settings are vast, starting at 90 seconds (which you can increase by paying more) all the way to using an IP until it is not available anymore.
Important to remember: response time is still not very fast, the interface is still lacking, the pricing plans give you limited port access and you have to whitelist the IPs in order to use them.
Smart payment plan
Overall rating: 7.5/10
It is important to mention that Zyte’s proxies are datacenter, but you shouldn’t care too much about it since they work fine and you won’t even notice it. It works in a similar way to an API via proxy integration: cookies and headers are taken care of and it auto-tries to retrieve data. The impressive part is that they have a 100% success rate. These proxies would work best with e-commerce sites and you can educate yourself with the detailed documentation Zyte provides.
Worth mentioning that there are a few limitations: There are limited locations, choosing a cheap plan locks access to features and the service decides for you when to rotate and how long you will wait before trying again. Also, there is no 24/7 support which will limit your work, especially on the weekends.
Great combination between pricing and customization
Overall rating: 7/10
IPRoyal pride itself on 3 main things: its residential IP pool has credit-based pricing, flexible rotation, and generally cheap rotating proxies. Add to that the fact that there are no monthly plans, you buy as much traffic as you need (the more you buy, the less it costs) and you can choose the exact rotation time up to 24 hours and you get a near-perfect solution.
The pool of rotating proxies is big, with over 2M proxies you can rotate but the performance (speed and stability) is still behind the competition. Customer support is quick to reply, we waited only 5 seconds! In addition to being fast, they offer 24/7 chat support.
Premium proxies at a reasonable price
Overall rating: 7.2/10
If you are a business, then Infatica can provide you with affordable residential proxies. They invest a lot of effort in ethical IP use and sourcing, offer a wide location coverage and the proxy server is very good.
On Infatica, you can choose the rotation time frame based on your needs, and you can use both HTTP/S and SOCKS5 proxies. You can an ISP level targeting and prices are fair, ranging from $12/GB to $3.5/GB for residential proxies. Offering more than 200K US rotating residential IPs means that you won’t find yourself using the same IP over and over again, at least not if you are not running a huge scraping operation.
Their customer support is attentive and replies quite quickly, we waited only 2 minutes to get our answers. You will also enjoy a $1.99 3 day trial to test any plan you wish!
Rotating options for a budget businesses
Overall rating: 6.8/10
Rotating datacenter and residential proxies is the name of the game with Strom Proxies. If you use proxies for personal reasons or for a small business that works on a budget, Storm Proxies are the answer for you. You also get unlimited bandwidth with every plan, even for residential.
It comes at a price that you’ll have to be willing to pay: performance and features are limited, targeting is not specific and the pool of IPs is not big (less than 1M rotating IPs). There is also a cap on how many concurrent connections you can make.
We didn’t really like the support as it takes time to get a reply via email and there is no live chat available.
Yes. Rotating proxies change (rotate) the IP you’re using after every request or after a defined period of time (depending on the provider and what you need)
Rotating proxies are mostly used for web scraping, data mining, SEO monitoring, social media management, and online advertising.
Basically 5 things: Rotation setting, targeting options, proxy type, concurrent connections, and number of IPs. You can read more above.
No. Each provider has its’ advantages and disadvantages. Make sure to read what are they above and make a decision according to your needs.
Depends. You need to know exactly what is the purpose of your usage, and how much you’d need to use. Some providers are more expensive than others.
It depends on the website you are scraping. As a rule of thumb, if you want to get faster results while using web scraping tools, rotating proxies are a good way of achieving that goal.
Ran is an affiliate manager for many years that has worked in the proxies and web data industries for a long time.
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