Best Shared Proxies for Web Scraping (2025): 10 Providers Compared
If you want to scale web scraping without paying dedicated-proxy prices, shared proxies are usually the first âseriousâ step up: you get IP diversification at a lower cost. The trade-off is variabilityâconnection quality can fluctuate, another customerâs behavior can get an IP range flagged, and some plans impose concurrency limits that quietly cap throughput.
This 2025 guide narrows the field to 10 shared-friendly proxy providers, with a comparison table plus practical selection criteria and implementation examples you can copy into production.
Comparison Table
| Service | Main shared proxy types | Billing model | What stands out | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bright Data | Shared DC (rotating) / Shared DC (unlimited) | Per-GB or per-IP | Multiple shared DC options; strong management features | Long-running scraping against heavily protected sites |
| Oxylabs | Shared DC (rotating) | Per-GB | Clear shared-DC product; features are well-defined | Scaling across projects with stable rotating DC |
| Decodo (formerly Smartproxy) | Shared DC (rotating / static options) | Per-GB (DC) | Quick setup; strong price-to-performance balance | Prove success rate first, then expand |
| Rayobyte | Rotating DC | Per-GB | Can be cost-effective at higher volumes | Cost optimization at high request volume |
| Webshare | Shared proxy list | Per-IP | Free tier available; simple shared-proxy onboarding | Testing, validation, and small jobs |
| Infatica | Shared DC (rotating) | Per-GB | Shared DC plans are clearly labeled | Mid-sized recurring crawls |
| SOAX | DC (available inside bundles) | Bundle (GB-equivalent) | Designed to use DC within a multi-type plan | Operations that mix proxy types |
| PacketStream | P2P residential (shared) | Per-GB | Lower-cost; different risk profile due to P2P nature | Use cases prioritizing block avoidance |
| Storm Proxies | Rotating (backconnect-style) | Threads-based monthly pricing | Easy to manage by concurrency | Light to medium rotating workloads |
| Proxyrack | Shared DC (static-ish, low-share) | Per-port / per-IP | Explicit sharing ratio (e.g., â3â5 users per proxyâ) | Static-leaning design at lower cost |
Key takeaway: âShared proxiesâ isnât one thing. In practice youâll see (1) rotating shared datacenter pools (often per-GB), (2) shared proxy lists (often per-IP), and (3) P2P residential networks (often per-GB). Decide which shared model fits your target and workflow firstâthen pick a vendor.
Shared Proxy Basics
When shared proxies make sense
- Your per-domain request rate isnât extreme, and IP rotation is enough
- Youâre running a proof-of-concept or short-term project and want to keep costs low
- Your concurrency is moderate and you can absorb some failures with retries
When shared proxies are a bad fit
- You must keep long-lived sessions (fixed IPs or stable login sessions)
- Reputation variance is a deal-breaker (finance, strict WAF environments, etc.)
- A specific target aggressively monitors repeated access from the same IP
Warning: With shared proxies, other customers can impact your success rate. When performance drops, you should be able to distinguish âthe target tightened defensesâ from âyour shared IP pool got collateral damage.â Design your system so you can quickly test a different provider, zone/pool, or protocol without refactoring your whole scraper.
Top 10 Picks for 2025
Bright Data
Bright Data is a strong choice if you expect your scraping to mature over time. Its datacenter offering is structured into multiple operational modelsâsuch as shared rotating (per-GB) and shared unlimited (per-IP)âso you can start cheap and move toward more stable allocations as certain targets become business-critical. Bright Dataâs documentation also clearly defines Datacenter IP types (Shared / Shared unlimited / Dedicated unlimited), which makes it easier to align plan choice with how your scraper actually runs. See the official Bright Data datacenter proxy configuration docs for the current definitions.
Oxylabs
Oxylabs offers âShared Datacenter Proxiesâ as a clearly scoped product: rotating by default, with the option to keep a sticky IP via a session mechanism when you need continuity. For teams that want a predictable, well-defined shared DC baseline and then scale horizontally across targets, this kind of clarity reduces operational surprises. Details are available on the Oxylabs Shared Datacenter Proxies pricing page.
Decodo
Decodo (formerly Smartproxy) is often picked for âget it working quicklyâ deployments: you can run datacenter proxies on per-GB plans and typically find a comfortable balance between cost, onboarding simplicity, and real-world success rate. If you want to validate extraction logic and anti-bot tolerance before committing to more specialized infrastructure, Decodo is a practical starting point. See Decodo buy proxies and the Decodo datacenter pricing page.
Rayobyte
Rayobyte provides rotating datacenter proxies with per-GB billing. For larger volumes, this model can become easier to optimize because unit costs often improve as you buy higher traffic tiers. If your workload is request-heavy and youâre actively watching cost-per-successful-page, Rayobyte is worth benchmarking. Refer to Rayobyte pricing.
Webshare
Webshare is a straightforward way to start using shared proxies, especially for test runs. It advertises a free tier (commonly used for validation and tooling checks) and keeps the setup workflow simple. If youâre building internal scripts, QA checks, or small scheduled jobs, Webshare is an easy on-ramp. See Webshare shared proxy features.
Infatica
Infatica offers shared datacenter proxies with per-GB pricing and multiple traffic tiers. That structure fits teams that want to start with a small recurring crawl, measure stability and block rates, then scale capacity without changing architecture. See Infatica pricing.
SOAX
SOAX is notable because datacenter proxies are often positioned as part of bundled plans rather than a standalone âDC-onlyâ purchase. That can be a good fit if your production system intentionally mixes proxy typesâe.g., defaulting to DC for cost, then failing over to residential/mobile for tougher targets. See SOAX datacenter proxies.
PacketStream
PacketStream is a well-known example of a P2P residential network. This is âsharedâ in a different sense than shared datacenter pools: youâre relying on an end-user device network, which can improve block-avoidance outcomes on some targets but introduces a different operational and compliance profile. Use it when residential IP characteristics matter more than deterministic infrastructure behavior. See PacketStream pricing.
Storm Proxies
Storm Proxies provides rotating backconnect-style proxies with plans often framed around concurrency (threads) on a monthly basis. If your planning is driven by âhow many parallel workers can I run?â rather than âhow many GB will I move?â, this model can be easier to reason about. See Storm Proxies rotating reverse proxies.
Proxyrack
Proxyrack highlights the degree of sharing (for example, a small number of users per proxy) more explicitly than many vendors. Thatâs useful if you want something closer to âsemi-static sharedâ rather than a large rotating poolâespecially when youâre trying to reduce collateral damage while still controlling cost. See Proxyrack shared datacenter proxies.
How to Choose (5 Criteria)
Rotating vs. static
If a target blocks aggressively, start with rotating proxies. If you must keep sessions (logins, carts, long workflows), prioritize static IPs or sticky sessions (IP stays consistent for a defined time window).
Standardize your billing model
Per-GB pricing makes cost forecasting easier at high volume, but âheavyâ pages (large HTML, images, or retries) can inflate bandwidth unexpectedly. Per-IP pricing often feels like âunlimited bandwidth,â but you still need to watch concurrency limits and any fair-use rules.
Geo targeting granularity
Some projects only need country targeting; others need region/state/city-level precision. This matters for localized SERPs, e-commerce pricing differences, and delivery-eligibility checks that vary by city or region.
Choose an authentication model that fits your runtime
Use IP allowlisting when you have fixed egress (static servers). Use username/password authentication when you run across ephemeral infrastructure (serverless jobs, autoscaling workers, CI runners) where IPs change and allowlisting becomes brittle.
Operational tooling matters more than people expect
Dashboards that support sub-users, usage monitoring, quick zone/pool switching, and rollback paths can drastically reduce the cost of keeping scrapers stable for months.
Practical rule of thumb: âStart with shared rotating (per-GB) to prove success rate â move only the critical jobs to static/dedicated.â This is usually the easiest way to balance cost and reliability in production.
Implementation Examples
Using a proxy in Python
import requests
proxy_url = "http://USER:PASS@HOST:PORT"
proxies = {
"http": proxy_url,
"https": proxy_url,
}
r = requests.get("https://httpbin.org/ip", proxies=proxies, timeout=30)
print(r.status_code, r.text)Retry design
import time
import requests
def fetch(url, proxies, max_retries=5):
for i in range(max_retries):
try:
r = requests.get(url, proxies=proxies, timeout=30)
if r.status_code in (429, 403, 503):
# Assume rate limits or shared-IP collateral damage
time.sleep(2 ** i)
continue
r.raise_for_status()
return r.text
except requests.RequestException:
time.sleep(2 ** i)
raise RuntimeError("failed")Warning: A 429 or 403 doesnât always mean âyour scraper is blocked.â With shared proxies, it can also mean another user pushed the IP over a rate limit. Use exponential backoff and rotate sessions (or rotate IPs) together.
Primary-source reference
Bright Dataâs Datacenter Proxies provide IP types such as Shared (shared rotating, billed per GB), Shared unlimited (shared, unlimited bandwidth), and Dedicated unlimited (dedicated, unlimited bandwidth).
The summary above is based on Bright Dataâs official documentation describing Datacenter IP types. In real operations, the important part is that you can evolve your architecture over timeâfor example, moving from shared rotating â shared unlimited â dedicated unlimited as specific targets become more critical. See the Bright Data Datacenter configuration docs.
Common Failure Patterns
Cranking concurrency too high
Shared pools are shared by definition. As you increase threads/workers, error rates can rise, which triggers retriesâand those retries often increase total bandwidth and cost.
Reusing the same request fingerprint
Changing IPs alone isnât enough. If your User-Agent and Accept-Language never change, many bot detection systems will still cluster your traffic. Rotate request headers and client fingerprints alongside proxies.
Not logging enough to debug
Capture at least: HTTP status, target domain/path, proxy type/pool, concurrency, and response time. Minimal structured logs make it much easier to tell whether you need more retries, different rotation strategy, or a different proxy tier.
Official Links
Need stable shared proxies in production?
If your shared proxy success rate is slipping due to blocks, rate limits, or inconsistent pools, we can help you redesign proxy selection, rotation, and retry strategy for long-term scraping stability.
Summary
In 2025, âshared proxiesâ isnât just about buying cheaper IPs. Rotating vs. sticky behavior, authentication methods, geo targeting, and operational tooling all affect real-world scraping success. In most teams, the most practical approach is to start with shared rotating proxies (per-GB) to establish a stable success rate, then move only your highest-value targets to static or dedicated proxies. Use the 10 providers above as a shortlist, then narrow by requirements (geo granularity, concurrency, and session needs).
