Testing Proxy Networks: What We Have Learned So Far

With the ever-increasing internet industry, proxy IP networks are growing alike. They help businesses acquire data in various forms to either use or manipulate it for different purposes. But there was little to no detail about this large proxy IP network market before the extensive market research of Proxyway.

In this research, residential IP pools from different providers went through intensive testing to find out all the relevant metrics to judge the overall quality of the networks.

Before you decide, take a look at how this testing was done and what the findings were. Let’s get started.

What Is Proxyway?

To give the context about Proxyway, they are one of the biggest platforms to conduct data-driven research on proxy services. They also make educational content to provide you with an in-depth idea of proxy servers and related topics.

You’ll find some of the most honest reviews about proxy IP providers on this platform. They have been doing market research for several years, and the latest research gathered convincing data to find out the actual scenario of the proxy IP network market. Before jumping into the findings, let’s introduce you to the research methodologies and selected criteria.

How Proxyway Tested Proxy IP Networks?

To make the findings reasonable, only residential proxy providers were selected. Eight major companies were on the list. The testing methodology was divided into two sections, one is the automated performance test and the other is manual analysis.

Automated Performance Test

This portion of testing included three tests. Here’s a brief overview of them.

• Proxy Pool Test: This test is run to determine the size of the proxy pool, uniqueness of IPs, response time, and other metrics. The IPs from eight providers were used to make up to 100,000 connection requests every day. A total of approximately 2.2 million requests were made for over 20 days.
• Target Test: A few real websites were selected to determine the performance of the proxy networks. But the range of this test was much smaller than the previous test.
• Stress Test: This test determined the sustainability of the provider’s infrastructure. Approximately 500 requests were made to residential IP servers to test their performance.

Manual Analysis

This section included personally collected data on four different metrics. Here they are.

• Features: Includes targeting options, authentication methods, connection protocols, etc.
• User Experience: Dashboard functionality, API, etc.
• Price: Payment methods, unit price, etc.
• Customer Service: Overall support, number of channels, languages, etc.

How Proxyway Evaluates Performance of Different Providers

The evaluation of proxy providers was done in two steps. One is general evaluation, and the other is use case evaluation. In the evaluation, the metrics received from the test mentioned above were used to judge providers in different aspects.

Here is a brief overview of those aspects to justify the findings.

Proxy Pool Size

This number is crucial to determine the capability of proxy providers to provide enough IP in appropriate locations.

Proxy Pool Quality

Just the proxy pool size doesn’t depict the quality of the pool. So, Proxyway took this criterion to determine the version of the IP protocol and devices the provider uses.

Proxy Pool Performance

It refers to the connection quality of the IP addresses provided and the sustainability of the provider’s infrastructure.

Proxy Pool Stability

This is one of the rarest metrics used in evaluating the proxy IP network market. It refers to the comparative analysis of stability and fluctuation in the connections.

Features

This includes location coverage, targeting options, IP rotation, authentication methods, etc.

User Experience

It refers to the user’s overall experience while accessing dashboards, APIs, or other tools.

Customer Service

The customer service of different providers was judged to figure out how quickly and effectively they respond to a support query.

Price

Great price and pricing models are important to scale a business, especially in this industry.

What We Have Learned So Far from This Research

Here are three major findings of this test. These are safe to be assumed as the newest market trends based on all the data evaluated during the research.

Static Residential Proxies are Booming

Static residential proxies weren’t that popular before. But in the year 2020, these proxies got a boom, especially in the sneaker shopping industry.

Emphasis on Ethical Use of Proxy IP

As botnet or fraud has long been involved with proxy IP networks, the importance of ethical proxy IP sourcing has come into light lately.

Proxy-IP-Powered Products and Services are Getting Popular

With the rise of sustainable infrastructure, proxy providers are moving towards creating more customizable and effective services. These services require almost no technical knowledge to avail, hence very convenient for a non-techy user.

Final Words

Proxyway puts light on an unseen part of the proxy IP network industry. Knowing the changed behavioral pattern of this industry will allow providers to come up with better services by understanding the actual requirement of the market.