Oxylabs and Smartproxy have established themselves as leading providers in the proxy services industry, catering to a global customer base with their wide-ranging proxy offerings. Both companies offer various types of proxies like residential, datacenter and mobile, along with web scraping tools.
However, while they share some fundamental similarities, there are also notable distinctions between their capabilities, user experiences, and cost structures. This detailed evaluation examines the key differences, commonalities and overall strengths of Oxylabs and Smartproxy, equipping readers to select their optimal solution.
Company Backgrounds
Founded in 2015, Lithuania-based Oxylabs began by providing datacenter proxies before expanding into residential proxies and developing specialized web scraping APIs. The company currently has over 300 employees.
Operating since 2018, Smartproxy employs around 130 staff and offers residential, datacenter and mobile proxies alongside an array of both self-serve and managed web scraping solutions. Their offerings aim to facilitate simplified access to web data.
Both vendors have established substantial pools of IP addresses across different proxy types like residential and datacenter, resulting from years of operation and consistent network growth.
Smartproxy has garnered over 40 customer reviews on platforms like G2, TrustRadius and Capterra, earning an average rating of 4.4/5 stars.
Meanwhile, with over 55 reviews, Oxylabs has achieved an average customer rating of 4.5/5 stars. This demonstrates both proxies present trusted solutions that predominantly satisfy customer requirements.
Types of Proxies Offered
Oxylabs provide the following main proxy options:
- Residential proxies – Both regular and Next-Gen with advanced capabilities
- Mobile proxies – Shared IP addresses mimicking mobile devices
- Over 2 million dedicated datacenter IPs across USA and Europe
- 360,000 rotating ISP proxies spanning 20 nations
The residential proxy network contains over 100 million IP addresses globally. Next-Gen residential proxies offer sophisticated features like automatic fingerprint generation, mimicking real browsers.
Smartproxy offer:
- 55 million residential IPs supporting country, state, city targeting
- 400,000 private and 100,000 shared datacenter IPs
- 10 million mobile proxies covering 700+ carriers for iOS and Android
- Over 100,000 static IPs through ISP proxies in 4 countries
Smartproxy provides flexible targeting options for residential IPs, allowing filtering right down to a zip code in the USA. Their mobile proxies can also be filtered specifically by mobile carrier or operating system.
Both Oxylabs and Smartproxy cater extensive geographically diverse proxy pools for key proxy types, enabling users to fine-tune locations. Oxylabs offers a larger dedicated datacenter network, while Smartproxy provides more advanced targeting configuration for residential and mobile proxies.
Web Scraping Capabilities
Oxylabs delivers specialized scraper APIs including:
- SERP API – Supporting coordinate targeting
- eCommerce API
- Real estate API
Their Custom Parser allows transforming scraped content into structured JSON data.
Smartproxy provides both self-serve and managed web scrapers:
- No-code visual scraper – Select page elements to extract data
- Web scraper API – Returns unparsed HTML from any site
- Ecommerce and SERP APIs – Parsed scraping with JSON/HTML output
Additionally, Smartproxy offers convenient browser extensions and integrations with tools like Python and Postman.
For large-scale scraping needs, Oxylabs‘ tailored scraper APIs offer pre-optimized performance for particular data types, while Smartproxy provides broader self-service capabilities.
Pricing and Plans
Oxylabs pricing varies based on proxy type:
- Residential – From $500 per month
- Mobile – $30 per GB
- Datacenter – From $300 per month
- Free trial for 7 days (companies)
Volume-based discount tiers are available for residential proxies, reducing costs for higher usage customers.
Smartproxy pricing also differs based on product:
- Residential proxies – From $75 per month
- Mobile proxies – From $100 per GB
- Datacenter – From $90 per month
- 14-day money back policy for all products
Smartproxy also offers pay-as-you-go pricing for residential and mobile proxies charged by usage volume, which provides added flexibility for intermittent needs.
Both vendors provide free trials or refund periods along with customized enterprise pricing. Smartproxy generally offers cheaper entry-level rates for small customers. Meanwhile, Oxylabs pricing can become more cost-effective managing extremely large-scale proxy demands.
Reliability and Support
The majority of Smartproxy users emphasize the reliability and effectiveness of the proxy services in reviews. Support responsiveness garners frequent praise, cited as helpful, knowledgeable and quick to resolve any issues encountered. Areas highlighted for improvement include the desire for longer IP session durations and more detailed usage analytics.
Oxylabs earns consistent positive feedback for dependable proxy performance and high success rates when scraping difficult sites. While support teams receive general commendation for their attentiveness, some users faced unhelpful or slow experiences. Suggested enhancements include expanding city-level targeting and enhancing some dashboard functionality.
Conclusion and Recommendations
For most use cases, both Oxylabs and Smartproxy present capable options when choosing a proxy provider, each with their relative strengths:
- Smartproxy excels in user-friendly self-service offerings and responsive dedicated support. Their flexible plans suit prototyping needs.
- Oxylabs provides resilience for large volumes with advanced residential proxy features and specialized scraping APIs.
For large and complex web scraping demands, Oxylabspossesses infrastructure tailored to such requirements. Their scraping APIs and Next-Gen residential proxies optimize performance for nuanced systems.
Meanwhile, for those with simpler or experimental scraping needs, Smartproxy provides versatility including easy integrations, pay-as-you-go pricing and intuitive point-and-click scrapers to minimize complexity.
In summary, weighing your current and future scraping goals against the two companies‘ contrasting advantages will guide your supplier selection appropriately on a case-by-case basis. Reach out for any personalized guidance in determining the ideal proxy partner for your organization‘s needs from our independent experience.