AI Indexes
IT AI Index
September 2026 Edition, published September 17, 2026 · The permanent record of that edition, superseded since. The current standing is on the category page →
Index › Data platform › September 2026 Edition

Proxy and web data providers

Asked as “proxy network”, and as “residential proxy provider for web scraping”, on behalf of a mid-market B2B company. 46 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, twelve models each. Added to the September 2026 Edition; its answers are read by the distilled judge (ai-indexes-judge-qwen3-14b-run3), not the claude-opus-5 judge of the earlier categories: how the two compare.
Standing · first-choice share
41%
Clear leader
41Decodo15Smartproxy13Webshare30others

41% of first choices, clear leader.

By buyer segment

The same question asked on behalf of a different buyer. Each standing is computed within its segment; they sit side by side and are never added together.

The standing

Share is the count of first choices across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, over all twelve models, for a mid-market B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01Decodo41%0%45endorsed leader
02Smartproxy15%5%21accepted challenger
03Webshare13%8%24accepted challenger
04Oxylabs11%15%55accepted challenger
05Bright Data7%25%52criticized challenger
06SOAX2%0%23accepted challenger
07IPRoyal2%19%27accepted challenger
08DataImpulse2%0%16accepted challenger
Show the three products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
11ScraperAPI0%30%10criticized challenger
09NetNut0%0%15accepted challenger
10Zyte API0%0%10accepted challenger
Bars are the share of first choices, 0 to 100Every product with at least 10 labels here. Every product name links to its product page.

Recommended versus criticized

Every product with at least 10 labels here, on both axes. The 30% line names a quadrant, not the verdict above: that one needs more than 40%.

Criticized challengerCriticized default
Negative label rate →
01
02
03
04
05
06
07
08
N09
10
11
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative60%
Key
01Decodo41%
02Smartproxy15%
03Webshare13%
04Oxylabs11%
05Bright Data7%
06SOAX2%
07IPRoyal2%
08DataImpulse2%
09NetNut0%
10Zyte API0%
11ScraperAPI0%

What they warned about

Four of twelve models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, Perplexity Sonar, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Qwen 3.7 Flash, GLM 4.7 FlashX and MiniMax M2.5 changed. A high negative share on a product with few labels is a warning. A low share on a product with many labels is salience, not sentiment.
Bright Data
25%
13 of 52 labels negative · 8 of 12 models · 1 hard negative
“Avoid Enterprise-Only Providers (Bright Data, Oxylabs) unless you have enterprise-level budgets” Kimi K2, direct prompt
Oxylabs
15%
8 of 55 labels negative · 6 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“**Avoid starting with enterprise-heavy plans** like Oxylabs residential if budget is tight” GPT-5.4 mini, budget prompt
IPRoyal
19%
5 of 27 labels negative · 5 of 12 models · 2 hard negative
“Providers with Red Flags: IPRoyal: Removed from some recommendation lists due to concerns about fake reviews and transparency issues.” Mistral Small, negative prompt
Proxy-Cheap
57%
4 of 7 labels negative · 3 of 12 models · 3 hard negative
“Users reported high fraud scores (80%–89%), making these proxies useless for social media, e-commerce, or scraping” Claude Haiku 4.5, negative prompt

What they cite

Citations exist only for the models that return a source list: fourteen of the twelve in this edition, and all six flagship models on the expanded tier.

Sites the answers cite

74 of 84 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 14 of 12 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 1053 links across 267 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page.

vendor site · Bright Data41 answers · 58 citations · 14 models
36 answers · 56 citations · 12 models
vendor site · Decodo32 answers · 47 citations · 12 models
22 answers · 26 citations · 11 models
vendor site · Oxylabs21 answers · 25 citations · 12 models
vendor site · Proxidize21 answers · 23 citations · 9 models
20 answers · 24 citations · 10 models
19 answers · 20 citations · 11 models
vendor site · Thunderbit19 answers · 19 citations · 10 models
vendor site · DataImpulse18 answers · 23 citations · 8 models
16 answers · 16 citations · 8 models
14 answers · 14 citations · 7 models

Pages the answers cite

The ten pages named in the most answers, by full address. A page here is one the models returned with a recommendation, not one the index endorses.

Search against answers

Each company's standing in the answers beside its site's footprint in Google search, one row a site: the products the models named on it with their shares, and the share they add up to; monthly searches on Google, and DataForSEO's estimate of AI search demand (modeled from search signals, directional, not a count of queries to any assistant), for the most-searched of the company's and its products' names (the name is in each row's hover text); estimated monthly organic visits to the site; and its best position in Google's top ten for “best proxy network”, “proxy and web data providers”, “proxy network”. US estimates from DataForSEO and Google's Ads Transparency Center. A small company's site, or a mid-sized company's site for its flagship, is marked company; a product on a large parent's site (Google, Microsoft) has no site figures. A column with no figures for this category is left out, and an empty cell means none were seen, not none exist. Two measurements side by side: neither is read as the cause of the other.
Company and productsShareOwn site citedName searches, GoogleAI search demand, est.Organic visitsPaid search a month, est.Google ads, last 30 daysBest Google position
Decodo decodo.com41%1076,6004049,580$3,85722
Smartproxy smartproxy.ai15%425,400271,862
Webshare webshare.io13%608,10051125,578$4127
Oxylabs oxylabs.io11%1489,900109173,182$20352
Bright Data brightdata.com7%1449,90029980,608$883951
SOAX soax.com2%572,4001616,95941
IPRoyal iproyal.com2%6112,10091130,906$178577
DataImpulse dataimpulse.com2%372,900514,745$18105
Blazing SEO2%
Rayobyte rayobyte.com2%6

Google's top ten for the three searches hold 23 sites; 3 of them are among the sites the models cited here (aimultiple.com, brightdata.com, oxylabs.io). The first result for “best proxy network” is ipburger.com.

How they answered

Six framings of the same buying question, each sent to every model in a fresh session with search on. One row per model, so a row shows whether it held its answer under rewording, what it named when cost was the constraint, and what it argued against. Computed from the raw judge labels.
ShowHide
ModelDirect“What is the best proxy network for a mid-market B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which residential proxy provider for web scraping would you recommend to a mid-sized B2B company?”Comparative“What are the top proxy and web data providers and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best proxy network for a company with a limited budget?”Scale-constrained“We are a 500 person company evaluating a proxy network. What should we look at?”Negative“Which proxy and web data providers should I avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5Decodo, Oxylabs
Two alternativesBright Data, SOAX
DecodoChanged
Two alternativesBright Data, Oxylabs
Bright Data, FloppyData, IPRoyal
Three alternativesDecodo, Oxylabs, SOAX
no first choiceno first choiceagainst: Bestproxy.com, Proxy-Cheap, Proxy-Seller.com, Spyderproxy
GPT-5.4 miniBright Data, Oxylabs
Three alternativesDecodo, NetNut, SOAX
OxylabsChanged
One alternativeBright Data
Bright Data, Oxylabs
Six alternativesDecodo, ScraperAPI, Smartproxy, Webshare, ZenRows, Zyte API
against: Apify
Bright Data
Three alternativesDecodo, IPRoyal, Webshare
against: Oxylabs
no first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashSOAX, Smartproxy
Five alternativesBright Data, NetNut, NodeMaven, Oxylabs, SimplyNode
DecodoChanged
Two alternativesBright Data, SOAX
Bright Data
Nine alternativesApify, Decodo, IPRoyal, Oxylabs, SOAX, Scrapfly, ScrapingBee, Webshare, ZenRows
Proxy-Cheap
Four alternativesDataImpulse, Decodo – formerly Smartproxy, IPRoyal, Webshare
against: Bright Data, Oxylabs
no first choiceagainst: 911.re, AWMProxy, Bright Data, Honeygain, IPIDEA, IPStorm, Oxylabs, PacketStream, Pawns.app, SerpApi, SocksEscort
Perplexity SonarDecodo
Two alternativesOxylabs, Proxy-Seller
against: IPRoyal, Webshare
OxylabsChanged
Two alternativesBright Data, Decodo
Bright Data, Oxylabs
Four alternativesDecodo, IPRoyal, SOAX, Webshare
Webshare
Three alternativesDataImpulse, Decodo, MarsProxies
against: Bright Data, Oxylabs
no first choicenothing named
Grok 4.1 FastDecodo
Two alternativesOxylabs, SOAX
against: Bright Data
DecodoHeld
Two alternativesIPRoyal, Oxylabs
against: Bright Data
Bright Data, Oxylabs
Six alternativesApify, IPRoyal, SOAX, ScrapingBee/Scrapfly, Smartproxy, Zyte API
Webshare
Three alternativesDataImpulse, Decodo, Proxy-Cheap
no first choiceagainst: IPRoyal, Leetsox.com, Proxy-Cheap.com, Proxyguys.com, RoundProxies.com, ScraperAPI
Mistral SmallDecodo
Two alternativesOxylabs, ProxyWing
DecodoHeldno first choiceWebshare
Two alternativesDataImpulse, Decodo
against: Luminati, Smartproxy
no first choiceagainst: IPRoyal, Luminati Networks
DeepSeek V4 FlashSmartproxy
Two alternativesOxylabs, SOAX
against: Bright Data
OxylabsChanged
Four alternativesBright Data, Decodo, NetNut, SOAX
Bright Data
Four alternativesDecodo, NetNut, Oxylabs, Zyte API
against: IPRoyal, ScraperAPI
Webshare
Two alternativesDecodo, IPRoyal
against: Oxylabs
no first choiceagainst: 922Proxy, 9Proxy, B2Proxy, FloppyData, IPIDEA, Luna Proxy, Proxy6.net, ProxyWing
Llama 4 MaverickDecodo
Three alternativesInfatica, Oxylabs, ProxyWing
DecodoHeldno first choiceDecodo
One alternativeDataImpulse
no first choicenothing named
Qwen 3.7 FlashDecodo
One alternativeOxylabs
SmartproxyChanged
Two alternativesNetNut, Oxylabs
against: Bright Data
Oxylabs
Five alternativesBright Data, NetNut, ScraperAPI, Smartproxy, ZenRows
Blazing SEO
Four alternativesGeonode, IPRoyal, SOAX, Webshare
no first choiceagainst: Bright Data, IPRoyal, Oxylabs
Kimi K2Decodo
Two alternativesDataImpulse, SOAX
against: Bright Data, Oxylabs
DecodoHeld
One alternativeOxylabs
against: Bright Data
Bright Data
Three alternativesOxylabs, Smartproxy, Zyte API
IPRoyal
Three alternativesDecodo, Proxy-Seller, Smartproxy
no first choiceagainst: Bright Data, Oxylabs, Proxy-Cheap, ProxyEmpire, SerpApi
GLM 4.7 FlashXSmartproxy
Four alternativesBright Data, Oxylabs, SOAX, Webshare
Bright DataChanged
Three alternativesDecodo, NetNut, Oxylabs
Bright Data, Oxylabs
Seven alternativesApify, IPRoyal, Oxylabs Web Scraping API, Proxy-Seller, ScrapingBee, Smartproxy, Zyte API
DataImpulse
Five alternativesDecodo, IPRoyal, MarsProxies, Proxy-Seller, Webshare
no first choiceagainst: Bright Data, ScraperAPI
MiniMax M2.5Rayobyte, Smartproxy
One alternativeOxylabs
DecodoChanged
Two alternativesBright Data, Oxylabs
Bright Data, Oxylabs
Seven alternativesCrawlbase, Decodo, IPRoyal, NetNut, SOAX, ScraperAPI, Zyte API
Smartproxy
Three alternativesPapaProxy, Rapidseedbox, ScrapingBee
against: Bright Data, Proxy-Cheap, Webshare
no first choiceagainst: 9proxy.com, InstantProxies, Proxy-Cheap, b2proxy.com
Bold is the first choiceAlternatives are counted; the count opens them.What the answer argued against

The record

One row per call: the version string exactly as returned, whether the model searched, sources cited, and latency. Full answer text is in the free responses file. Download the record
Seventy-two rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-05 00:40yes179 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-05 00:52yes45 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-04 22:25yes2225 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-05 01:25yes194 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-04 23:26yes2310 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-05 00:45yes53 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-05 01:37yes2127 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-05 01:21yes52 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-04 22:26yes520 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-04 22:45yes2427 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-04 22:27yes2425 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-05 00:45yes534 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-04 23:58yes1810 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-04 22:51yes35 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-05 01:00yes1328 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-05 00:29yes203 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-05 00:34yes2412 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-04 23:39yes53 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-05 01:07yes2527 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-05 01:57yes52 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-05 01:43no029 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-04 22:51yes2019 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-05 00:29yes1988 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-05 00:44yes1638 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-05 01:39yes1710 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-05 01:22yes411 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-05 01:43yes1227 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-05 01:36yes194 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-04 23:47yes2410 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-04 22:39yes157 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-05 01:03yes2356 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-05 00:32yes52 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-04 22:22no025 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-04 23:12yes1516 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-04 22:58yes2586 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-04 22:49yes1468 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-05 00:46no05 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-05 00:55yes34 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-04 23:19yes2021 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-05 00:40yes172 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-04 23:49yes219 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-05 00:19yes53 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-05 01:20yes2432 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-05 01:49yes53 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-04 22:47no022 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-05 01:34yes915 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-05 01:02yes1956 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-05 01:52yes573 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-05 00:36no05 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-04 23:37no010 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-05 00:32no015 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-04 23:33yes316 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-04 23:59yes127 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-05 01:01no08 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-05 01:21yes2156 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-05 00:59yes53 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-05 00:04no027 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-05 01:25yes1524 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-05 00:57yes1069 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-05 01:32yes515 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-04 23:38yes1810 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-05 01:09no05 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-05 01:40yes2331 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-05 00:28yes163 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-05 00:59yes2513 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-05 00:24yes53 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-04 23:16yes2447 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-05 01:20yes53 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-04 22:34yes2435 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-04 22:49yes2422 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-05 00:32yes2378 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-05 00:15yes1559 s

Normalization in this category

Every judgment call made between the raw labels and the numbers above, listed so it is visible and reversible.

ShowHide
Category-scoped readings
Cloudflare Gateway read as Cloudflare One
Zyte read as Zyte API
Zyte (formerly Scrapinghub) read as Zyte API
Unresolved, counted raw
911.re
9Proxy
9proxy.com
AWMProxy
Aimultiple
Bestproxy.com
Blazing SEO
Bright Data Ltd.
Datarade
Free Proxy List
Gravy Analytics / Venntel
Grepsr
IPStorm
InstantProxies
Leetsox.com
Luminati Networks (now part of Bright Data)
Luna Proxy
Oxylabs Web Scraping API
PapaProxy
PrivacySavvy
PromptCloud
Proxy-Seller.com
ProxyMesh
ProxyNova
Proxyguys.com
Proxyscrape
RoundProxies.com
Roundproxies
SSLProxies
Scrapingdog
Scrapingfly
Serpstat
SimplyNode
Spyderproxy
Webshares
X-Mode / Outlogic
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
← NoSQLStreaming →