Having a reliable free proxy website and provider is key to a successful web scraping project. If you’re looking for the best free proxy server, we have the list for you.
In this free proxies list, we’ve carefully curated the top 17 free proxy providers available in 2026. We’ll delve into their key features, strengths, and potential drawbacks to help you make an informed decision.
A note on free proxy limitations for data collection:
While free proxies can be a tempting option due to their low cost, they have limitations. Free proxy providers often offer less stable, slower connections than paid options like residential or datacenter proxies, which can significantly impact your ability to scrape complex or heavily protected websites.
If your web scraping projects demand high performance, reliability, and the ability to bypass advanced anti-scraping measures, investing in a paid proxy service might be the better choice.
Some proxy providers now combine proxy access with web scraping tools—such as automatic IP rotation and JavaScript rendering—to improve success rates on protected sites. These hybrid approaches can be more reliable than traditional free proxy lists, especially for testing or validating scraping workflows.
Let’s explore the top free proxy providers to see if they meet your specific data scraping requirements.
A TL;DR of The Best Free Proxy Providers for Scraping Website Data
Here’s a list of 17 free proxy servers and their primary strengths:
- ScraperAPI – Over 40 million rotating proxies with built-in web scraping tools to bypass anti-scraping measures.
- Decodo (formerly Smartproxy) – Easy to set up, flawless to use proxies.
- NetNut – Rotating Residential Proxies with Direct ISP Access
- Spys.one – Worldwide localized proxies from 171 countries.
- Open Proxy Space – Comes with a downloadable list of free proxies.
- Free Proxy – Great for testing purposes.
- ProxyScrape – Easy-to-sort and filter list of free proxies.
- Free Proxy Lists – Simple-to-use free proxy servers.
- SSL Proxy – Focuses on HTTPS proxies only.
- Free Proxy World – A US-based strong free proxy pool.
- Proxy-List – Free proxies for web scraping with API access.
- Proxy Nova – High-refresh rate free proxies.
- Cyber Gateway – Free SOCKS proxies for Google
- Geonode – Advanced proxy listings and sorting options.
- ProxyDB – Focuses on strong data security and protocols.
- Hidemy.name – Most frequently updated free proxy listings.
- Premproxy – Specializes in premium or highly anonymous free proxies.
Searching for proxies to extract Amazon data? You may want to check this 10 best rotating proxies for scraping Amazon.
1. ScraperAPI – Best Free Rotating Proxies for Web Scraping
ScraperAPI is a web scraping tool with extensive data extraction capabilities. This includes handling CAPTCHAs, rendering JS content, and scheduling web scraping activities based on your preferred time and frequency (check out ScraperAPI’s Data Pipeline solution here).
ScraperAPI offers a vast network of over 40 million proxies distributed across 50+ countries, enabling you to access location-restricted data. Despite being free, these proxies are reliable and capable of handling even the most challenging websites.
To access the free proxy offer, you can sign up for ScraperAPI’s 7-day free trial, which includes 5,000 API credits. After the trial, you can continue using ScraperAPI with a free forever plan that provides 1,000 API credits, or upgrade to a paid plan starting at $49 per month for 100,000 API credits.
Free proxies are generally fine for testing and low-volume scraping. For production scraping, however, reliability matters more than cost. In that context, ScraperAPI’s free plan works well as a stepping stone, allowing you to validate your scraping setup and target sites before committing to a paid proxy or scraping solution.
Try ScraperAPI’s free proxy today to support your data collection projects!
Pros
- Over 40 million IP addresses across 50+ countries.
- Smart IP rotation that automatically rotates between data center, residential, and mobile proxies—so you don’t need to manage rotation logic manually.
- Include premium residential IPs.
- 99.99% web scraping success rates with ScraperAPI.
- Built-in JavaScript rendering, making it reliable for scraping JS-heavy sites like Google and LinkedIn.
- Detailed API and proxy documentation.
- Structured data endpoints to collect JSON data from sites like Amazon, Google, and Zillow.
- Easy-to-use web scraping APIs, including Amazon APIs and Google APIs.
- A forever-free plan with 1,000 free API credits for a maximum of 5 concurrent connections.
Cons
- The proxies and web scraping tools from ScraperAPI are geared toward heavy, large-scale web scraping activities.
2. Decodo (formerly Smartproxy)
Decodo is a provider offering a free trial for all their proxies and APIs, including residential, static residential, ISP, and mobile proxies. It also provides web scraping tools, such as a Web Scraping API.
Decodo’s network includes over 65 million proxies spanning 195+ countries, enabling precise location targeting down to the country, state, city, ASN, and ZIP code level. The service is designed for businesses and individuals looking for high-quality proxy solutions with a self-service user experience, extensive documentation, and 24/7 customer support with an average 40s response time.
Pros
- Easy to set up, flawless to use
- 65+ million IPs across 195+ countries
- Includes residential, static residential, ISP, and mobile proxies
Cons
- Previously had limited targeting options, but now supports precise geolocation targeting.
For a more scraping-focused experience with built-in proxy rotation, CAPTCHA handling, and success-based billing, you can check an alternative to Decodo, which is purpose-built for web data extraction at scale.
3. NetNut
NetNut offers one of the most powerful rotating residential proxy solutions available in 2025, with a global network of over 85 million residential IPs spanning 195 countries. What sets NetNut apart is its non-peer-to-peer (non-P2P) architecture: all IPs are sourced directly through Internet Service Providers (ISPs), ensuring stable, high-speed connections with zero dependence on end-user devices.
These rotating proxies support HTTP, HTTPS, and SOCKS5 protocols and offer precise geo-targeting down to the city, state, and ASN level — ideal for scraping region-specific data or overcoming location-based restrictions. Thanks to unlimited concurrency and auto-rotating IPs, NetNut is particularly well-suited for high-scale web scraping, price aggregation, ad verification, and search engine monitoring.
Pros
- 85M+ rotating residential IPs from real ISPs (not P2P).
- Unlimited threads/connections with stable global coverage.
- High-performance proxy rotation for SERPs, ecommerce, travel, and more.
- Fast onboarding with a free trial available upon request.
Cons
- Free trial requires contact with sales — not instant sign-up.
- No permanent free tier; best suited for enterprise or scaling use cases.
If you’re looking for a faster onboarding process and usage-based pricing without sales calls, consider an alternative to NetNut that lets you start scraping instantly with built-in proxy rotation and success-based billing.
4. Spys.one
Spys.one is a free proxy database offering access to IP addresses from 171 countries worldwide. However, the number of available IPs can vary significantly by location. While the top three countries (Brazil, Germany, and the United States) offer over 800 proxies each, some countries might only have a handful.
To help users navigate the extensive list, Spys.one categorizes its HTTP proxies. Users can filter by anonymity level (anonymous free proxy), connection type (HTTPS/SSL or SOCKS), and other relevant criteria to find the most suitable proxies for their needs. 
As expected, most proxies have high latency and low speed, with uptime percentages averaging around 70%. Proxies are also listed with a “check date,” indicating when a proxy was last checked to be live. About a quarter of all proxies have been checked within the last 24 hours, another quarter checked within the last week, with the remaining half of all proxies on the list having been checked over a week ago. Some of the more obscure countries haven’t been checked in over a month and are most likely dead.
Pros
- Each proxy listing provides a rating for latency, speed, and uptime.
- Uses ‘load balancing’ technique and optimized network protocols to guarantee fast and reliable performance in every session.
Cons
- Low number of IPs in some countries.
- The website interface isn’t user-friendly, making it difficult to understand the information and buying process.
5. Open Proxy Space
Open Proxy Space presents free proxy lists divided into batches that can be downloaded in .txt format. Each batch is labeled based on when it was created, with each list containing only active proxies at the time of creation.
The lists are tagged with creation date, timeout of the proxies, and level of privacy – as seen in the image above.
Once a list is selected, users can choose which country or countries to include or exclude from the list, and then export the IPs in a text document.
Pros
- Paid members can access custom API scripts, ports, and more.
- Provide only freshly checked proxy lists.
Cons
- Offer a relatively low number of proxies (716 proxies).
- The free proxy sorting options are limited to free subscriptions.
6. Free Proxy
Free Proxy offers a user-friendly interface with over 17,000 proxies organized for easy navigation. Users can select from various protocols (HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS4, SOCKS5) and anonymity levels (elite, transparent).
Pros
- Advanced proxies categorization based on port, region, or city.
- Transparent ‘last checked’ time to ensure the proxies are performing well.
Cons
- While the proxy sub-lists are alphabetized, they currently lack additional sorting options.
7. ProxyScrape
Proxy Scrape has your standard-fare list of free proxies for web scraping with straightforward sorting options like country, anonymity, and SSL.
That said, the sorting by country option can be a little confusing, as it uses two-character country codes rather than the full country name or even a vastly more understandable three-character country code.
Pros
- A “timeout” slider permits a user to limit proxy results to those that meet or exceed a certain timeout threshold, measured in milliseconds.
- Offer a premium service with rotating proxies and other advanced features.
Cons
- ProxyScrape doesn’t offer a free trial. Users must pay for the premium proxy features, which defeats the purpose of getting free proxies.
8. Free Proxy Lists
Free Proxy Lists is renowned for its user-friendly interface, making it one of the most accessible free proxy providers. While it exclusively offers HTTP and HTTPS proxies, users can easily filter results based on country, port, protocol, anonymity level, and uptime.
Although the list can be sorted by region or city, finding a specific location requires manual scrolling through up to 38 pages. This is a minor drawback.
Pros
- Ability to sort the free proxies by country, anonymity, and SSL.
- Use the free app or API to download the free proxy list, which is updated every 30 minutes.
Cons
- Each proxy listing includes two color-coded bar graphs representing response and transfer levels, but numerical values for comparison are missing.
9. SSL Proxy
SSL Proxy, despite its tagline of “SSL (HTTPS) proxies that are just checked and updated every 10 minutes,” doesn’t always update its proxies every 10 minutes, but is likely within the last hour.
The “Google” field, likely related to Google’s acceptance or origin of the proxy, was not testable during our review as all listed proxies indicated “no.”
Pros
- Exclusively provides HTTPS proxies. It also offers HTTP and SOCKS proxies for a fee.
Cons
- Proxies aren’t checked every 10 minutes as claimed. Some have not been updated for more than 16 hours.
10. FreeProxy World
FreeProxy World offers a diverse range of high-quality proxies, easily sorted by type, anonymity level, country, port, and speed for convenient selection.
While the number of active proxies can fluctuate, as is common with free and public lists, FreeProxy World remains a viable option for testing scrapers before investing in a paid service. However, users should not expect consistently high performance.
Pros
- It offers more than 4600 proxy servers, mainly located in the US.
- Transparent about anonymity and last check information.
Cons
- The number of active proxies can fluctuate significantly. In our first test, FreeProxy World hosted over 25k proxies, but now, it only has 4,6k.
11. Proxy-List
Proxy-List offers a vast collection of over 5,000 free proxies, regularly updated every two hours.
Similar to other free proxy providers, Proxy-List offers standard sorting options, including HTTP, HTTPS, SOCKS4, and SOCKS5.
A convenient feature of Proxy-List is the ability to export proxy lists in various formats (JSON, CSV, TXT) or copy them directly to your clipboard.
Pros
- Easily export the proxy lists in several formats (including JSON, CSV, and TXT) and copy the data into your clipboard with just a few clicks.
- Provides API access and a Chrome extension for seamless web scraping integration.
Cons
- No information on when are the proxies last checked.
12. Proxy Nova
Proxy Nova offers a list of regularly updated free proxies, prioritizing recently checked addresses.
The free proxies are consistently up-to-date, with top-listed addresses typically less than a minute old. Speed, uptime, and location information are also provided.
Pros
- Requires manual page refreshes, which can be beneficial for maintaining focus on specific proxies.
Cons
- The free proxy sorting options are limited to country and anonymity.
- The total number of available proxies is not disclosed, but frequent updates suggest a reasonably sized pool.
13. Cyber Gateway
Pros
- Requires manual page refreshes, which can be beneficial for maintaining focus on specific proxies.
Cons
- The free proxy sorting options are limited to country and anonymity.
14. Geonode
Pros
- Advanced sorting options are based on several factors, including country, port, proxy protocol, speed, and more.
- Upgrading option to paid plans. The price starts at $5k for 10 TB.
Cons
- The last updated detail is aggregated information for the whole free proxy listings, not based on each proxy.
15. ProxyDB
Pros
- The free proxy lists may not be the most up-to-date, as the last check time is generally one day old.
- Relatively high uptime performance, ranging from 88% to 97%.
Cons
- No information on how many free proxies ProxyDB serves.
16. Hidemy.name
Pros
- Proxies are frequently checked for ping, proxy types, connection speed, and uptime.
- Sorting and search functions based on country, speed, port nu,nner, and anonymity.
Cons
- The free proxies are located in 62 countries, a rather low number compared to other free proxy providers.
- You’ll need to upgrade to a paid plan to export the free proxy provider list to IP:Port or Excel data.
17. Premproxy
Pros
- Easily export the proxy listing to IP:Port format with just one click.
Cons
- Include free proxy list sorting capability but not search function.
- The proxy listing doesn’t seem to be updated frequently.
Why is ScraperAPI the Best Free Proxy for Website Scraping?
ScraperAPI stands out as one of the best free proxy options for website scraping because it combines managed rotating proxies with built-in web scraping tools. Instead of relying on exposed public IPs, ScraperAPI automatically selects clean, high-quality IP addresses from a global pool of over 40 million proxies, helping you bypass common anti-scraping defenses even on heavily protected websites.
As websites increasingly deploy advanced anti-scraping measures, using standard free proxy lists has become unreliable and inefficient.
Most free proxy servers come with structural limitations that make them unsuitable for consistent web scraping:
- Public IP limitations: Free proxies often rely on public IP addresses that are easy for websites to detect, throttle, or block.
- Inconsistent reliability: While some free proxies may work briefly, they are frequently blocked as usage increases, leading to unstable scraping results.
How ScraperAPI solves these limitations
ScraperAPI addresses these challenges by pairing its proxy network with an intelligent web scraping infrastructure. Using machine learning and statistical analysis, ScraperAPI dynamically selects the best-performing IP address for each request, significantly improving success rates and reducing blocks.
This approach allows ScraperAPI to function not just as a proxy provider, but as a web scraping tool with built-in proxy management.
Key benefits of ScraperAPI’s free proxy and web scraping services
-
5,000 free API credits: Get started at no cost with a 7-day free trial.
-
US, EU, and select Asian geotargeting: Collect localized data from multiple regions worldwide.
-
JavaScript rendering: Easily extract content from dynamic, JS-heavy websites.
-
Robust anti-scraping protection: ScraperAPI automatically handles CAPTCHAs, headless browser detection, and other anti-bot measures, delivering up to a 99.9% web scraping success rate.
Ensure Web Scraping Success with Reliable Free Proxy Servers
ScraperAPI offers a robust free proxy server and web scraping tools combo, empowering you to extract data from almost any website seamlessly. Explore more about ScraperAPI’s automatic and large-scale web scraping solutions and proxy options. And when you’re ready to try, sign up here to get your 7-day free trial.
FAQs about Free Proxies For Scraping
ScraperAPI’s Google scraper is the best proxy for scraping Google because it uses a combination of data center, residential and mobile proxies to prevent your bots to get blocked.
Additionally, our Google endpoint will return all Google data in JSON format, making it easier for your team to repurpose and analyze the data faster.
Yes. While most free proxy lists are unreliable, some providers offer free access to managed proxy networks. ScraperAPI is one example, providing access to a large pool of rotating proxies designed for web scraping. With over 40 million IP addresses, smart proxy rotation, built-in JavaScript rendering, and a web scraping scheduler, ScraperAPI can reliably collect data even from difficult-to-scrape websites, with success rates of up to 99.99%.
Yes, you can get easily IP banned for web scraping. That’s why it’s crucial to have access to a pool of high-quality and regularly updated proxies while scraping the web.
Learn how our customers are using ScraperAPI to collect data from the toughest domains like LinkedIn, Google and Yahoo Finance.
Always use proxies instead of VPNs when scraping the web. Although proxies and VPNs work like gateways when connecting to a web, VPNs are easily detectable by advanced anti-scraping mechanisms.
ScraperAPI provides a smart IP rotation system and a high-quality proxy pool that’ll prevent servers from finding suspicious patterns in your requests.
The hardest proxies to detect are residential and mobile proxies, as these are IP addresses associated to real devices.
Still, without a proper IP rotation and anti-scraping handling systems, your scrapers will still get blocked.
Automate all of these complexities with a simple API by using ScraperAPI.
