Rating Breakdown
Usability 9.5/10Worth 6.9/10Velocity NaN/10Efficiency 10/10
Professionals
- Greatest-in-class success charge and response time
- Helpful browser extension
- Low pay-as-you-go costs
- Excessive-quality IP pool
- Low cost cellular proxy plans
Cons
- Costly high-data residential plans
- No city-level concentrating on with ISP and datacenter proxies
Decodo (previously Smartproxy) is likely one of the most well-established gamers within the proxy server area, and it’s straightforward to see why. It offers you secure and quick efficiency, an enormous and high-quality pool of proxies and loads of options that will help you attain your targets.
I’d advocate Decodo to anybody serious about utilizing a proxy server, however with its low pay-as-you-go costs and beginner-friendly instruments, it’s particularly enticing for smaller companies and new customers. (Enterprise prospects might be higher off with Oxylabs; you may learn our evaluation right here.) It has the bottom pay-as-you-go value of any residential proxy server on the market, beginning at $3.50 per GB, although bulk information packages are dearer than most rivals. Decodo’s pricing on cellular, ISP and datacenter proxies have been additionally aggressive — simply not the very most cost-effective on the market.
As somebody who was new to proxy servers once I began reviewing them, I additionally appreciated Decodo’s usability options. It’s one of many few proxies I examined that has a browser extension — useful for checking your information utilization at a look or including web sites to a bypass listing to exclude out of your proxy server. And once I did run into points, Decodo’s AI chatbot was truly fairly useful. I primarily centered on Decodo’s residential proxy servers for this evaluation, however I’ll additionally get into its cellular, ISP and datacenter providers under.
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Price
Decodo obtained a middling rating for worth in our proxy server analysis. It’s tied with Webshare and Rayobyte for the most affordable pay-as-you-go plan of any proxy I noticed, however all of its bulk information packages are on the costly aspect. Right here’s how the worth breaks down throughout its residential and cellular proxy server plans:
| Plan | Residential (per GB) | Cellular (per GB) |
|---|---|---|
| Pay As You Go | $3.50 | $4.00 |
| 2GB | $6.00 | $3.75 |
| 8GB | $5.50 | $3.50 |
| 25GB | $5.20 | $3.25 |
| 50GB | $4.90 | $3.00 |
| 100GB | $4.50 | $2.75 |
| 250GB | $4.00 | $2.50 |
| 500GB | $3.50 | $2.25 |
| 1000GB | $3.00 | Customized |
In contrast to most residential proxies, the worth truly goes up once you purchase in bulk in comparison with one gigabyte at a time. This makes it an particularly enticing choice for somebody who needs to, say, use a sneaker bot to buy limited-edition sneakers with out being detected. As a substitute of overpaying for 500GB of knowledge to get the $3.50-per-GB value, you may simply add extra everytime you see a pair you want.
The draw back to that’s it may get actually annoying to always add one gig at a time to your account, particularly if you happen to’re doing issues like bulk net scraping or search engine optimization monitoring. Nonetheless, Decodo’s costs for its 25-250GB plan are aggressive, even if you happen to’ll pay greater than you’d by the gig. The desk under reveals how Decodo compares to a number of the different fashionable residential proxy servers. Take into accout, completely different proxy servers supply completely different information packages, so it’s not at all times a exactly apples-to-apples comparability.
| Plan | Decodo (per GB) | Oxylabs (per GB) | Webshare (per GB) | Infatica (per GB) |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pay As You Go | $3.50 | $4.00 | $3.50 | $4.00 |
| 25GB | $5.20 | $3.87 (13GB) | $2.60 | $3.84 |
| 50GB | $4.90 | $3.75 (40GB) | $2.45 | None |
| 100GB | $4.50 | $3.49 (86GB) | $2.25 | $3.60 |
| 250GB | $4.00 | $2.75 (318GB) | $2.00 | $2.90 (241GB) |
| 500GB | $3.50 | None | $1.75 | $2.70 |
| 1000GB | $3.00 | $2.00 | $1.50 | $2.60 |
In the case of ISP and datacenter proxy servers, Decodo’s plans are extra competitively priced. Most proxies cost by the IP handle for these plans as an alternative of by information utilization. Decodo’s datacenter proxy costs begin at $1.35 per devoted IP for a bundle of 200 and go as much as $1.85 for 3.
Efficiency
To judge Decodo’s efficiency, I relied closely on Proxyway’s 2025 Research report, which yearly sends out over one million requests to prime proxy servers to measure issues like success charge, response time and IP high quality. I additionally signed up for Decodo’s residential proxy service myself and related to it whereas I labored for 2 days to see the way it carried out beneath real-world situations.
General, Decodo obtained my highest efficiency rating of any proxy server. It has a uncommon mixture of always-on success charge and ultra-low response time, and it allows you to select from greater than 195 places in your proxy server. Within the US, you may even choose particular ZIP codes that you really want your visitors to route by means of.
Proxy pool and high quality
Decodo advertises 115 million proxy servers in its pool, which is behind solely Oxylabs (175 million), SOAX (155 million) and Vivid Information (150 million). This huge variety of proxies is important to keep away from anti-bot detection for actions like net scraping. However the uncooked quantity isn’t the one factor that issues — you additionally want these IPs to be high-quality.
Decodo affords greater than 195 places to select from in its proxy pool.
Proxyway makes use of an business customary known as IPQualityScore (IPQS), which is often utilized in fraud prevention, threat evaluation and risk detection. This tells you not simply what number of servers a proxy firm has at its disposal, but in addition what number of of these IP addresses are prone to be flagged as fraudulent.
By this measure, Decodo ranked second globally and first within the US for IPv4 addresses. Some proxy providers have a bigger share of IPv6 addresses, of which there are exponentially greater than IPv4. However solely about 40% of top websites at the moment assist IPv6, so that you’re extra prone to run into compatibility points with proxies that rely closely on the newer customary. Decodo’s pool solely consists of 16.6% IPv6 addresses.
In line with Proxyway’s report, fraud scores over 90% are prone to be flagged as “high-risk customers prone to interact in malicious conduct.” Decodo nonetheless has a world pool made up of principally 90+ IPQS scores, however that’s par for the course with proxy providers. It’s nonetheless within the prime three globally for IP high quality (that means it has one of many lowest proportions of high-risk customers), and primary for the US particularly.
Proxyway’s fraud rating evaluation discovered that Decodo had the second-highest proportion of addresses under 75% in its international pool.
Success charge and response time
Decodo’s proxy servers are in a position to full its duties a overwhelming majority of the time, they usually do it quicker than another firm. In line with the Proxyway report, Decodo had an infrastructure success charge of 99.86%, which was simply narrowly behind Oxylabs at 99.90%. Whether or not you’re utilizing a proxy server for net scraping, shopping for restricted version gadgets or information aggregation, you could be sure that Decodo will perform your duties efficiently virtually each time (principally 999 out of 1,000).
It additionally does them as shortly as you may count on from a proxy server. Decodo has a median response time of 0.63 seconds — lower than one-third the delay of final place Rayobyte.
That’s nonetheless about 50 occasions slower than the average internet connection in the US with no proxy, however once more, all issues are relative with proxy providers, and it’s extremely unlikely anybody might be utilizing a proxy for issues that require low latency like videoconferencing or on-line gaming. (For these actions, a VPN is a significantly better choice, although it comes with its personal caveats. You’ll be able to be taught extra concerning the distinction between the 2 in our guide.)
Decodo had the bottom common response occasions in its residential international pool of any fashionable proxy service.
Options and value
Decodo comes with all the customization choices we appeared for in a proxy service, after which some.
By default, Decodo’s proxies rotate with each connection request, which suggests you’re always getting a brand new IP handle each time you wish to perform a job. However you may as well select to ascertain a “sticky” connection for any time interval you select, as much as 24 hours. That was a better stage of customization than virtually another proxy service I examined.
Decodo permits for each rotating and sticky periods, with durations as much as 24 hours obtainable.
Decodo additionally doesn’t restrict the variety of requests you can also make concurrently, permitting you to maintain as many going as your {hardware} is ready to carry out. It additionally helps all the main protocols: HTTP, HTTPS and SOCKS5.
There have been a number of further options I actually appreciated as properly. Decodo’s Web site Unblocker lets customers extract information from web sites with out constructing their very own customized net scraping utility. It was additionally one of many few proxy providers that has a browser extension that permits you to monitor your utilization, add web sites to a bypass listing or flip the proxy on or off.
Decodo’s useful browser extension works with Google Chrome and Mozilla Firefox.
I typically discovered Decodo to be essentially the most user-friendly proxy service of any of the dozen I examined. Most proxies require an honest quantity of technical know-how to arrange, however Decodo minimized the training curve with its huge trove of documentation and consumer guides. And when questions inevitably popped up, Decodo’s chat characteristic was truly efficient in answering them — or at the least guiding me towards the suitable troubleshooting web page.
It was additionally simpler to examine easy analytics about my utilization than most different proxies. Its major dashboard confirmed how a lot information I’d used at any given time, and it even translated that into how a lot of my price range that labored out to. All of that was straightforward to entry by means of Decodo’s browser extension, too. If I used to be managing a bigger venture, I may see how these little touches could possibly be a godsend, and I discovered myself lacking them on different proxies I examined.
Decodo’s proxy networks
I’ve centered on Decodo’s residential proxy servers for this evaluation, as these are the commonest sorts for many use circumstances, however the firm affords the total suite of servers, together with cellular, ISP and datacenter proxies. Right here’s what you may count on from every kind of Decodo proxy server.
Cellular
Decodo has cellular proxies in most international locations around the globe, with an marketed pool of 10 million IP addresses — good for the third-largest of any proxy service. Like its residential proxy pool, you may goal IPs by nation, state, metropolis, ASN (Autonomous System Quantity) or perhaps a system’s working system.
It additionally had the best infrastructure success charge of any cellular proxy at 99.94% and the quickest response time at 0.57 seconds, in accordance with Proxyway’s Market Analysis report. Decodo’s cellular proxy server costs are additionally a number of the lowest I noticed, and considerably under its residential plans.
| Plan | Decodo (per GB) | Oxylabs (per GB) | Infatica (per GB) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Pay As You Go | $4.00 | $5.40 | $8.00 |
| 25GB | $3.25 | $4.92 (12GB) | $6.50 (20GB) |
| 50GB | $3.00 | $4.74 (38GB) | $6.00 (40GB) |
| 100GB | $2.75 | $4.50 (80GB) | $5.00 |
| 250GB | $2.50 | $3.60 (292GB) | $4.00 (200GB) |
| 500GB | $2.25 | $3.00 (600GB) | Customized |
Datacenter
Datacenter proxies are usually the most affordable kind you could find, and that holds true for Decodo’s, with costs beginning at simply $3.50 for 50GB and 100 shared IPs. Most datacenter proxies cost by the IP slightly than the GB, however Decodo affords each, together with the flexibility to pay per devoted IP.
Decodo says its datacenter proxy pool consists of greater than 100,000 shared and devoted datacenter servers. Its devoted datacenter proxies are all situated within the US, whereas its shared pool consists of 16 international locations. The foremost draw back to Decodo’s datacenter proxies is that you may solely goal total international locations, not particular cities.
ISP (static residential)
Decodo’s ISP, or static residential, proxy servers have the same pricing construction to its datacenter proxies. You’ll be able to pay by the GB, by the devoted IP or by the shared IP and the GB. In Proxyway’s testing, it despatched 70,000 requests over every week and located that Decodo’s datacenter proxies have been recognized as residential 57%, which it described as an “OK outcome.” You get what you pay for with ISP proxies, although — the upper proportion of visitors that’s flagged is offset by the decrease prices per GB.
The underside line
An amazing proxy service comes right down to its value per GB, the scale and high quality of its proxy pool, its success charge and response time and consumer expertise. On virtually all of these fronts, Decodo carried out extremely properly.
There are a pair providers on the market with bigger proxy swimming pools, however none that might match the standard of Decodo’s residential IPs or its total efficiency. Mixed with its best-in-class documentation and value instruments, Decodo is a simple choose for one of the best proxy for particular person customers.
My solely bone to choose is the worth. In case you’re going to be paying for 1TB or extra at a time for a residential proxy service, you would doubtlessly save hundreds of {dollars} a month by going with Oxylabs or Webshare, though each include their very own drawbacks like slower response time, decrease IP high quality and a worse consumer expertise.
