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Index › Data platform › Proxy and web data › Enterprise › October 2026 Edition

Proxy and web data providers for enterprise buyers

Asked as “proxy network”, and as “residential proxy provider for web scraping”, on behalf of an enterprise B2B company. 50 first choices recorded across the direct, paraphrase, budget and scale prompts, fourteen models each. Added to the October 2026 Edition on October 4, 2026; 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
42%
Clear leader
42Bright Data42Oxylabs04Cloudflare One12others

42% 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 fourteen models, for an enterprise B2B company. Ordered by share.
ProductFirst-choice shareNegative rateLabelsQuadrant
01Oxylabs42%6%63endorsed leader
02Bright Data42%8%60endorsed leader
03Decodo2%12%17accepted challenger
Show the four products at 0%, ordered by negative rate
07NetNut0%29%24criticized challenger
06Smartproxy0%23%13accepted challenger
05SOAX0%18%17accepted challenger
04Zyte API0%0%11accepted 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.
All twenty-eight head-to-head pages: the top eight products, each against each

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
N07
Accepted challengerEndorsed leader
0%First-choice share → · lines at 30% share and 25% negative60%
Key
01Oxylabs42%
02Bright Data42%
03Decodo2%
04Zyte API0%
05SOAX0%
06Smartproxy0%
07NetNut0%

What they warned about

Three of fourteen models held their first choice under the paraphrase. Claude Haiku 4.5, GPT-5.4 mini, Gemini 3.5 Flash, DeepSeek V4 Flash, Llama 4 Maverick, Qwen 3.7 Flash, Kimi K2, GLM 4.7 FlashX, MiniMax M2.5, GPT-6 Luna and Muse Glimmer 30B 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.
NetNut
29%
7 of 24 labels negative · 5 of 14 models · 6 hard negative
“Enterprises are generally advised to avoid or apply enhanced due diligence to providers that: ... have been publicly linked to botnet abuse, malware SDKs, or non-consensual device enrollment such as NetNut/Popa.” Muse Glimmer 30B, negative prompt
911 S5
100%
5 of 5 labels negative · 5 of 14 models · 5 hard negative
“The 911 S5 case is the historical precedent cited for the current enforcement trend: residential proxy botnets build their IP pools by infecting consumer devices” Muse Glimmer 30B, negative prompt
Bright Data
8%
5 of 60 labels negative · 5 of 14 models · 1 hard negative
“it carries significant historical and ongoing controversy that enterprises should weigh carefully” GLM 4.7 FlashX, negative prompt
Oxylabs
6%
4 of 63 labels negative · 4 of 14 models
“**Oxylabs** - Named in the Reddit vs. Perplexity lawsuit (October 2025), exposing legal liability for proxy providers” MiniMax M2.5, negative prompt

What they cite

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

Sites the answers cite

79 of 84 answers in this category came back with a source list, from 14 of 14 models: citations where the model returns them, or the search results it consulted. 1151 links across 333 sites, every framing counted. Ranked by the number of answers carrying the site or page. None of the 252 answers across every segment cited this index's own page for the category.

vendor site · Bright Data52 answers · 105 citations · 14 models
vendor site · Thunderbit41 answers · 50 citations · 10 models
38 answers · 44 citations · 11 models
34 answers · 53 citations · 12 models
vendor site · Decodo29 answers · 34 citations · 11 models
vendor site · DataImpulse27 answers · 36 citations · 10 models
vendor site · Oxylabs20 answers · 31 citations · 10 models
vendor site · Proxidize20 answers · 23 citations · 11 models
vendor site · Live Proxies20 answers · 20 citations · 10 models
16 answers · 17 citations · 9 models
15 answers · 19 citations · 9 models
15 answers · 16 citations · 8 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
Oxylabs oxylabs.io42%1489,900109173,182$20352
Bright Data brightdata.com42%1449,90029980,608$883951
Cloudflare parent site
Cloudflare One 4%
4%372550,00010,897
Decodo decodo.com2%1076,6004049,580$3,85722
ProxyOmega proxyomega.com2%5
Netskope netskope.com2%4118,10083042,11927
Forcepoint forcepoint.com
Forcepoint Web Security 2%
2%24,40024425,465 company52
Titan Network2%
Proxy-Cheap proxy-cheap.com2%153,6006114,0179
Zyte API zyte.com0%2821083,278$57314

Google's top ten for the three searches hold 23 sites; 4 of them are among the sites the models cited here (aimultiple.com, brightdata.com, designrush.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 an enterprise B2B company?”Paraphrase“Which residential proxy provider for web scraping would you recommend to a large B2B company with thousands of employees?”Comparative“What are the top enterprise-grade proxy and web data providers and how do they differ?”Budget-constrained“What is the best proxy network for a large company that needs predictable total cost across thousands of users?”Scale-constrained“We are a 5,000 person company with SSO, SOC 2 and procurement review requirements evaluating a proxy network. What should we look at?”Negative“Which proxy and web data providers should a large enterprise avoid or be cautious about?”
Claude Haiku 4.5Bright Data
Four alternativesDecodo, Live Proxies, Oxylabs, Proxidize
OxylabsChanged
Three alternativesBright Data, DataImpulse, NetNut
Bright Data, Oxylabs
One alternativeSOAX
against: Decodo
Bright Data, Oxylabsno first choicenothing named
GPT-5.4 miniBright Data
Two alternativesDecodo, Oxylabs
OxylabsChanged
One alternativeBright Data
Bright Data
Five alternativesDecodo, NetNut, Oxylabs, SOAX, Webshare
Bright Datano first choicenothing named
Gemini 3.5 FlashOxylabs
Four alternativesBright Data, Decodo, NetNut, Proxidize
Bright DataChanged
Two alternativesNetNut, Oxylabs
Bright Data
Four alternativesDataImpulse, Decodo, Oxylabs, Webshare
against: NetNut
Cloudflare One
Six alternativesBright Data, Oxylabs, PrivateProxy, Proxyrack, Smartproxy, Zscaler Internet Access
no first choiceagainst: 911 S5, Bright Data, Clearview AI, IPIDEA, LUXSOCKS, Oxylabs, RSocks, VIP72
Perplexity SonarOxylabs
Two alternativesBright Data, Decodo
against: Webshare
OxylabsHeld
One alternativeBright Data
Bright Data
Four alternativesDataImpulse, Decodo, Oxylabs, SOAX
against: Infatica, ProxyEmpire
Proxy-Cheapagainst: Bright Data, Oxylabsno first choiceagainst: Byteful, DataImpulse, IPRoyal, Proxyrack, SOAX
Grok 4.1 FastBright Data
Four alternativesDecodo, NetNut, Oxylabs, SOAX
Bright DataHeld
One alternativeOxylabs
against: Decodo, Smartproxy
Bright Data, Oxylabs
Four alternativesApify, SOAX, Smartproxy, Zyte API
against: IPRoyal
Oxylabs
Three alternativesBright Data, IPRoyal, Webshare
against: SOAX, Smartproxy
no first choiceagainst: PacketStream, Proxy-Seller, ScraperAPI, Storm Proxies, ZenRows
Mistral SmallOxylabs
Two alternativesDecodo, Live Proxies
OxylabsHeldBright Data, Oxylabs
Five alternativesApify, GeoSurf, SOAX, Smartproxy, Zyte API
Bright Data, Oxylabsno first choicenothing named
DeepSeek V4 FlashBright Data
One alternativeOxylabs
OxylabsChanged
One alternativeBright Data
Bright Data, Oxylabs
Three alternativesDataImpulse, Decodo, Zyte API
against: NetNut
Bright Data, Oxylabs
Two alternativesDecodo, Proxyrack
against: NetNut
no first choiceagainst: 360Proxy, 911 S5, 922Proxy, ABC Proxy, Bright Data, Cherry Proxy, Fine Proxy, IP2World, IPIDEA, LunaProxy, NetNut, Oxylabs, PIA S5 Proxy, Plain Proxies, PyProxy, Rapidseedbox, Rayobyte, SocksEscort, TabProxy
Llama 4 MaverickDecodo, OxylabsOxylabsChanged
Two alternativesProxidize, Zyte API
no first choiceno first choiceno first choicenothing named
Qwen 3.7 FlashBright Data, Oxylabs
Two alternativesGeoSurf, Smartproxy
OxylabsChanged
One alternativeBright Data
Bright Data, Oxylabs
Three alternativesNetNut, Smartproxy, ZenRows
Bright Data
Two alternativesOxylabs, Smartproxy
no first choicenothing named
Kimi K2Bright Data, Oxylabs
Two alternativesSOAX, Smartproxy
Bright DataChanged
One alternativeOxylabs
Bright Data
Six alternativesApify, NetNut, Oxylabs, ScrapingBee, Smartproxy, Zyte API
Forcepoint Web Security, Netskope
Four alternativesBright Data, Oxylabs, ProxyOmega, Zscaler
against: NetNut
no first choiceagainst: Bright Data, Free/Open Proxy Services, Hola VPN / Bright Data
GLM 4.7 FlashXOxylabs
Four alternativesBright Data, Decodo, IPRoyal, SOAX
against: Proxy-Cheap
Bright DataChanged
Two alternativesInfatica, Oxylabs
Bright Data, Oxylabs
Nine alternativesApify, Context.dev, Diffbot, Ficstar, ParseHub, ScrapeHero, ScrapingBee, Smartproxy, Zyte API
Bright Data
Two alternativesDataImpulse, Oxylabs
no first choiceagainst: Bright Data, Smartproxy
MiniMax M2.5Bright Data, Oxylabs
One alternativeProxy-Seller
Bright DataChanged
One alternativeOxylabs
Bright Data, Oxylabs
Two alternativesSmartproxy, Zyte API
ProxyOmega
Five alternativesBright Data, FuseProxy, Live Proxies, Oxylabs, ProxyAI Cloud – Enterprise
no first choiceagainst: 911 S5, IPIDEA, NetNut, Oxylabs
GPT-6 LunaBright Data, Oxylabs
One alternativeDecodo
Bright DataChanged
One alternativeOxylabs
Bright Data, Oxylabs
Five alternativesApify, DataForSEO, Decodo, ScrapeHero, Zyte API
Cloudflare One
One alternativeZscaler Internet Access
no first choiceagainst: 5socks, 911 S5, Anyproxy, Cloudrouter, Mobilewalla, SocksEscort
Muse Glimmer 30BOxylabs
One alternativeBright Data
Bright DataChanged
One alternativeOxylabs
Bright Data, Oxylabs
Five alternativesApify, Decodo ex-Smartproxy, Massive, NetNut, SOAX
Titan Network
Two alternativesLive Proxies, Oxylabs
no first choiceagainst: 911 S5, Infatica, NetNut, SOAX, Webshare
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
Eighty-four rows: every prompt, every model, every answer.
PromptModelVersion stringTime (UTC)SearchedSourcesLatency
Direct recommendationClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-05 00:19yes98 s
Direct recommendationGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-05 01:39yes34 s
Direct recommendationGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-05 00:22yes1523 s
Direct recommendationPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-04 23:55yes193 s
Direct recommendationGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-05 00:45yes2312 s
Direct recommendationMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-05 00:05yes54 s
Direct recommendationDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-05 01:09yes2331 s
Direct recommendationLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-04 23:59yes52 s
Direct recommendationQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-05 00:43no027 s
Direct recommendationKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-05 00:15yes1014 s
Direct recommendationGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-05 00:06yes2266 s
Direct recommendationMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-05 00:03yes965 s
Direct recommendationGPT-6 Lunagpt-6-luna2026-10-05 01:18yes517 s
Direct recommendationMuse Glimmer 30Bmeta/muse-glimmer-30b via togetherai2026-10-04 23:05yes159 s
ParaphraseClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-05 01:35yes1710 s
ParaphraseGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-05 01:03yes34 s
ParaphraseGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-04 23:16yes1123 s
ParaphrasePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-04 22:54yes202 s
ParaphraseGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-04 22:16yes2411 s
ParaphraseMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-05 00:47yes53 s
ParaphraseDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-05 00:45yes2122 s
ParaphraseLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-05 01:47yes52 s
ParaphraseQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-04 23:32yes1027 s
ParaphraseKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-05 00:51yes1529 s
ParaphraseGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-05 00:42yes2324 s
ParaphraseMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-05 00:55yes2033 s
ParaphraseGPT-6 Lunagpt-6-luna2026-10-04 23:37yes215 s
ParaphraseMuse Glimmer 30Bmeta/muse-glimmer-30b via togetherai2026-10-05 00:45yes1415 s
ComparativeClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-05 01:15yes1712 s
ComparativeGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-05 01:27yes510 s
ComparativeGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-04 23:07yes2835 s
ComparativePerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-05 01:40yes205 s
ComparativeGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-05 00:20yes2413 s
ComparativeMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-04 22:39yes2515 s
ComparativeDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-04 22:45yes2340 s
ComparativeLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-05 00:35yes52 s
ComparativeQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-05 01:54no035 s
ComparativeKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-04 23:10yes2433 s
ComparativeGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-04 22:59yes15108 s
ComparativeMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-04 22:44yes1224 s
ComparativeGPT-6 Lunagpt-6-luna2026-10-05 01:29yes845 s
ComparativeMuse Glimmer 30Bmeta/muse-glimmer-30b via togetherai2026-10-05 01:08yes2351 s
Budget constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-05 00:35yes189 s
Budget constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-05 01:52yes24 s
Budget constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-05 00:05yes1224 s
Budget constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-05 01:27yes204 s
Budget constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-05 01:52yes2110 s
Budget constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-05 00:38yes54 s
Budget constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-05 01:31yes2330 s
Budget constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-04 23:28yes53 s
Budget constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-05 00:43no028 s
Budget constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-05 00:04yes2431 s
Budget constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-04 22:35yes2370 s
Budget constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-05 01:33yes22142 s
Budget constrainedGPT-6 Lunagpt-6-luna2026-10-05 01:51yes315 s
Budget constrainedMuse Glimmer 30Bmeta/muse-glimmer-30b via togetherai2026-10-05 01:34yes1320 s
Scale constrainedClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-05 01:30yes1911 s
Scale constrainedGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-04 23:02yes39 s
Scale constrainedGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-05 01:54yes225 s
Scale constrainedPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-05 01:26yes207 s
Scale constrainedGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-05 00:22yes149 s
Scale constrainedMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-04 23:17no08 s
Scale constrainedDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-05 01:27yes2585 s
Scale constrainedLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-05 00:58yes54 s
Scale constrainedQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-04 23:45yes526 s
Scale constrainedKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-05 00:22yes2430 s
Scale constrainedGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-05 00:31yes15148 s
Scale constrainedMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-05 00:04yes1523 s
Scale constrainedGPT-6 Lunagpt-6-luna2026-10-05 00:26yes223 s
Scale constrainedMuse Glimmer 30Bmeta/muse-glimmer-30b via togetherai2026-10-05 01:52yes1220 s
Negative framingClaude Haiku 4.5claude-haiku-4-5-202510012026-10-04 22:35yes1811 s
Negative framingGPT-5.4 minigpt-5.4-mini-2026-03-172026-10-04 22:57yes56 s
Negative framingGemini 3.5 Flashgemini-3.5-flash2026-10-05 01:23yes2326 s
Negative framingPerplexity Sonarsonar2026-10-05 00:01yes204 s
Negative framingGrok 4.1 Fastspacexai/grok-4.1-fast-non-reasoning via vertex2026-10-04 23:52yes2412 s
Negative framingMistral Smallmistral/mistral-small via mistral2026-10-05 01:33yes55 s
Negative framingDeepSeek V4 Flashdeepseek/deepseek-v4-flash via deepinfra2026-10-05 00:16yes2462 s
Negative framingLlama 4 Maverickmeta/llama-4-maverick via bedrock2026-10-04 23:52yes52 s
Negative framingQwen 3.7 Flashalibaba/qwen3.7-flash via alibaba2026-10-04 22:24no024 s
Negative framingKimi K2moonshotai/kimi-k2 via novita2026-10-05 00:39yes2532 s
Negative framingGLM 4.7 FlashXzai/glm-4.7-flashx via zai2026-10-04 23:42yes2559 s
Negative framingMiniMax M2.5minimax/minimax-m2.5 via minimax2026-10-04 22:33yes1436 s
Negative framingGPT-6 Lunagpt-6-luna2026-10-04 23:14yes423 s
Negative framingMuse Glimmer 30Bmeta/muse-glimmer-30b via togetherai2026-10-04 23:30yes2535 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
360Proxy
ABC Proxy
Byteful
Cherry Proxy
Cloudrouter
Context.dev
DataForSEO
Decodo ex-Smartproxy
Diffbot
Ficstar
Fine Proxy
Free/Open Proxy Services
FuseProxy
Hola VPN / Bright Data (formerly Luminati)
IP2World
LUXSOCKS
NetNut Proxy Network
Nimbleway
PIA S5 Proxy
Plain Proxies
PrivateProxy
ProxyAI Cloud – Enterprise
PyProxy
RSocks
TabProxy
Titan Network
VIP72
Discontinued, still offered
No shut-down product was recommended here.
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