Best Proxies to Bypass YouTube Bot Blockers

TL;DR: Best Proxies to Bypass YouTube Bot Blockers [Compared]

7 Best Proxies to Bypass YouTube Bot Blockers

1. ScraperAPI

ScraperAPI is an effective and reliable tool for scraping YouTube data at scale thanks to its pool of over 90 million proxies in 200+ locations (highly focused on geotargeting), perfect for worldwide geotargeting. 

ScraperAPI is widely appreciated for its proprietary proxy management (backed by machine learning and statistical analysis). This technology powers up your infrastructure with the right proxy matching, automatic retries, timeouts, and smart IP rotation to ensure high success rates. By doing this, ScraperAPI avoids triggering CAPTCHA challenges; even then, if a CATPCHA is triggered, it automatically drops the connection and retires with a different connection.

When it comes to scraping YouTube, ScraperAPI provides a set of tools to make the process easier and faster:

• JS Rendering: ScraperAPI lets you fully load YouTube pages before accessing data through JavaScript rendering, collecting dynamically loaded content that standard scrapers will miss.
• JS Instructions: This feature instructs the browser on specific actions to execute during page rendering. You can simulate user actions like clicking and scrolling, making it possible to scrape data that is only accessible through interaction.
• CAPTCHA and Advanced Bypassing: ScraperAPI’s smart IP rotation and CAPTCHA handling allow you to bypass even strict anti-bots like DataDome, PerimeterX, and CF Turnstile.
• DataPipeline: The DataPipeline feature allows you to schedule and automate recurring scraping tasks. You can set up these jobs visually or via the API, adding an extra layer of automation to large-scale scraping projects.
• Async Scraper: ScraperAPI’s Async Scraper can handle millions of requests asynchronously without performance drops at a 99.99% success rate.

Key Features

• Over 90 million IPs globally – including residential, datacenter, and mobile proxies
• Advanced bypassing to avoid blocks
• CAPTCHA handling
• Visual and API scheduler to automate recurrent scraping jobs
• Geotargeting to scrape region-specific YouTube data
• Webhook integration for real-time data delivery
• Auto-removal of slow proxies  for uninterrupted scraping

Pricing

ScraperAPI offers a transparent, credit-based pricing system where you only pay for successful requests. With easy cost forecasting and no hidden fees, you can effectively manage your scraping budget. Start exploring all premium features with a 7-day free trial, including 5,000 API credits.

Note: You can purchase additional API credits after reaching the monthly quota. 

Pros and Cons

2. IPRoyal

IPRoyal provides robust proxy pools of residential, datacenter, and mobile proxies, which can be used for YouTube scraping. Its robust rotating proxies help bypass bot blockers and handle CAPTCHAs effectively.

With low block rates for residential and datacenter proxies, IPRoyal ensures minimal disruptions in data collection. 

IPRoyal stands out with two compelling features: free tools like browser extensions, a Windows-based proxy tester, and an IP lookup tool. And secondly, it offers non-expiring proxy plans—your traffic remains available indefinitely until you choose to use it, with no time limits. 

Key Features

• 34 million IPs spanning 195+ locations 
• Unlimited bandwidth with 99.9% uptime
• Round-the-clock support via live chat, email, and Discord
• Geo-targeting for scraping localized data
• All-in-one dashboard to configure proxies, track data, and automate orders
• SOCKS5 support and unlimited concurrency

Pricing

IPRoyal splits its proxy service into three types: residential per GB, datacenter per proxy, and mobile proxies per month. This gives you full control over building a proxy pool that fits your needs.

However, this freedom also means you’ll need to make more decisions like the number of proxies you’ll need from each category, manage multiple plans, and ensure you’re not overspending on proxy overhead – like using residential proxies when datacenters one would be enough.

ScraperAPI, on the other hand, gives you access to a mixed pool of over 90M proxies. it incorporates residential and mobile proxies as a fallback within its main proxy pool, using them only when needed to keep costs lower than typical proxy providers. This configuration is perfect for minimizing expenses and automating proxy management.

Pros and Cons

3. ProxyEmpire

ProxyEmpire offers a robust network of over 9.5 million residential and mobile IP addresses across 190+ locations for YouTube scraping. It allows you to easily manage multiple YouTube accounts, automate tasks, scrape YouTube data, and avoid getting blocked or flagged. 

Also, ProxyEmpire offers concurrent requests for faster data extraction, optimized caching for reduced latency, and load balancing to maintain high performance even during heavy usage. This makes it ideal for businesses and developers needing efficient web data access.

Key features 

• Ethically sourced IPs with 99.7% uptime guarantee
• Automatic IP rotation management.
• Integration with major browser automation tools (e.g., Multilogin, X-Login)
• Bot-like behavior simulation to mimic real user traffic
• Location-based proxies for localized trend analysis 

Pricing

The only downside is that ProxyEmpire is pricier than many providers, especially for static residential proxies. You pay for both traffic and each IP, with 1 GB costing $15 and each IP starting at $2/month.

In comparison, other providers offer more affordable proxy plans.

Pros and Cons

4. SOAX

SOAX offers scalable YouTube scraping with 191 million IPs in 195 locations. You can customize flexible rotations with three set-up options: same IP up to rotation, hold IP if connection lost (sticky IP), and rotating—new IP on each request at user preference to prevent IP bans.

SOAX’s advanced Web Unblocker technology guarantees uninterrupted access to YouTube content. In combination with proxy management, it bypasses CAPTCHAs and avoids IP bans from even the most sophisticated anti-bot systems.

Note: However, Web Unblocker is a separate product that users need to purchase for advanced anti-scraping mechanisms. 

Key Features

• 99.95% uptime for stability
• Sticky sessions to the use of the same IP across multiple requests
• HTTP, HTTPS, and SOCKS5 protocol support
• Unlimited concurrent requests for large-scale scraping
• Geotargeting down to the city level for localized data extraction

Pricing

SOAX structures its plans around traffic volume and offers transparent pricing across all proxy types. However, it lacks a free trial. With SOAX, you get a three-day paid trial at $1.99/100 MB.

Also, the additional cost for the Web Unblocker could be expensive if you prefer secure scraping. In contrast, ScraperAPI offers all these capabilities on regular pricing plans and a free trial for all premium features.

Pros and Cons

5. Smartproxy

Smartproxy provides a vast network of 65M+ IPs (residential, mobile, and data center) across 195+ locations,  designed to scrape YouTube for most of its use cases. Whether for sentiment analysis, tracking video rankings, or generating subscribers, Smartproxy enables seamless YouTube scraping using rotating or sticky sessions. 

With Smartproxy, you can get many additional tools, such as Chrome Proxy Extension, Firefox Add-on, X Browser, and more, along with every residential proxy subscription.

Note: Smartproxy offers Site Unblocker, a proxy solution for accessing a range of targets and avoiding CAPTCHAs or IP bans. It comes with a combination of proxy management but is more expensive than their usual residential proxy plan.

Key Features

• SSL encryption ensures safe browsing, protects data, and avoids malware
• Pay-as-you-go plans with a 14-day money-back guarantee
• Easy to use with 24/7 live chat and award-winning customer support
• Sticky sessions lasting from 1, 10, or 30 minutes to up to 24hr custom sticky sessions
• User-friendly dashboard with free tools 

Pricing

SmartProxy uses a GB-based pricing model for their residential proxies. While the tiered structure offers volume discounts, users often face challenges predicting their exact bandwidth needs, potentially leading to overbuying or running out mid-project. 

Modern pricing models, like paying only for successful requests, offer better value and predictability for scraping projects.

Pros and Cons

6. Infatica

Infatica is a great rotating proxy option, with 20 million global proxies, for your YouTube scraping projects. Its residential proxies offer high anonymity by using real residential IPs to bypass YouTube’s anti-bot systems and geo-restrictions. The platform supports unlimited concurrent sessions and maintains high success rates for uninterrupted scraping projects. 

Note: Similar to SOAX and Smartproxy, Infatica offers a “Web Unlocker” as a separate solution with proxy rotation, JavaScript, browser fingerprinting, and auto retries features apart from its standalone proxies at an expensive end.

Key features

• Large global proxy pool from 250+ countries
• A user-friendly dashboard to check IP list, rotate proxies, and change geolocation
• Effective prevention of IP bans and CAPTCHAs 
• 99.9% uptime and low response times 
• Offer flexible pricing options based on the proxy parameters you choose

Pricing

Infatica offers a range of pricing plans with different parameters, such as available traffic, IP address count, and additional features, allowing you to choose a plan that best fits your project’s needs. However, large-scale scraping can be expensive. 

For more flexibility, you can also opt for their customizable pricing option to fine-tune the parameters according to your requirements.

Pros and Cons

7. Webshare

Webshare is a versatile proxy service that offers various proxy types, including datacenter, static residential, and rotating residential proxies, making it well-suited for YouTube scraping. 

With over 30 million residential IPs across 195+ countries, it provides global coverage and reliability. WebShare’s Proxy Server helps scraping YouTube with its advanced bypass mechanisms that effectively handle both CAPTCHAs and geo-restrictions.

Also, the new WebShare proxy server extension lets you manage the proxy list and settings right from the browser. Users can quickly switch locations, update proxy settings, and access their dashboard without complex configurations.

Key features

• 99.97% uptime for stability
• Free proxy list up to 1GB/mo bandwidth
• User-friendly dashboard that tracks bandwidth usage, error rates, and activity metrics in real-time.
• HTTP/SOCKS protocols for enhanced security

Pricing

WebShare’s pricing depends on how much bandwidth you use while scraping websites. This means your costs can change a lot each month – you might pay more when websites are data-heavy or when scraping attempts fail but still use up your bandwidth. . 

Pros and Cons

Challenges of Scraping YouTube

Scraping YouTube presents some serious challenges due to the platform’s advanced anti-bot measures. These defenses keep the platform safe from misuse and provide a satisfying user experience, but they also limit anyone trying to retrieve data in bulk.

If you tried scraping YouTube from your end, you would have encountered challenges like:

• CAPTCHAs: Tests that aim to prevent bots from scraping websites by presenting complex visual, text, and audio challenges that are hard to solve for machines.
• JavaScript challenges: Involve figuring out a particular element on the page, solving math problems, or handling a CAPTCHA. If a bot fails to finish the challenge, it will be identified and may be blocked.
• User-agent checks: YouTube evaluates the user-agent string of incoming requests to determine if they’re from a human or a scraper. Requests with illegitimate user-agent strings (or that send too many requests) will be denied.
• IP blocks: Restricts access to specific IP addresses if they are detected as bots. This is usually determined by request frequency, browser fingerprinting, and on-site behavior, just to mention a few techniques.
• Honeypots: These are hidden elements, like links, only to bots. YouTube employs them on its page to detect and block bots when interacting with them.

Addressing each of these challenges might make your scraping work much more complicated and expensive. 

Also, YouTube might throw reCAPTCHA challenges after too many requests, and solving them manually just isn’t practical. To get around this, you can use ScraperAPI to bypass YouTube’s anti-scraping challenges with minimal setup.

The Best Proxy to Bypass YouTube Bot Blockers—ScraperAPI

We’ve explored seven proxy solutions to bypass YouTube bot blockers. Out of all,  ScraperAPI stands out for its user-centric scraping solution that simplifies YouTube data collection. 

ScraperAPI guarantees uninterrupted data collection by efficiently managing browsers, CAPTCHAs, and other anti-bot defenses. With an impressive 99.9% success rate, you can confidently scrape YouTube data.

Want to give it a go? Learn more about how ScraperAPI can help you scrape YouTube data. 
For a free trial, Create a ScraperAPI account and try the code snippet below to download YouTube video, comments, metadata, and channel information:

import requests
from yt_dlp import YoutubeDL
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup
 
## Downloading a YouTube Video
def download_video(video_url):
    opts = {}
    with YoutubeDL(opts) as yt:
        yt.download([video_url])
    print(f"Downloaded video: {video_url}")
 
## Extracting YouTube Comments    
def extract_comments(video_url):
    opts = {"getcomments": True}
    with YoutubeDL(opts) as yt:
        info = yt.extract_info(video_url, download=False)
        comments = info["comments"]
        thread_count = info["comment_count"]
        print("Number of threads: {}".format(thread_count))
        for comment in comments:
            print(comment['text'])
 
## Extracting Metadata
def extract_metadata(video_url):
    opts = {}
    with YoutubeDL(opts) as yt:
        info = yt.extract_info(video_url, download=False)
        data = {
            "URL": video_url,
            "Title": info.get("title"),
            "Width": info.get("width"),
            "Height": info.get("height"),
            "Language": info.get("language"),
            "Channel": info.get("channel"),
            "Likes": info.get("like_count")
        }
        print("Metadata:", data)
        return data
 
## Scraping Channel Information
def scrape_channel_info(channel_url, api_key):
    params = {
        'api_key': api_key,
        'url': channel_url,
        'render': 'true'
    }
    response = requests.get('https://api.scraperapi.com', params=params)
    if response.status_code == 200:
        soup = BeautifulSoup(response.text, 'html.parser')
        channel_name = soup.find('yt-formatted-string', {'id': 'text', "class":"style-scope ytd-channel-name"})
        channel_desc = soup.find('div', {'id': 'wrapper', "class":"style-scope ytd-channel-tagline-renderer"})
        if channel_name and channel_desc:
            channel_info = {
                "channel_name": channel_name.text.strip(),
                "channel_desc": channel_desc.text.strip(),
            }
            print("Channel Info:", channel_info)
            return channel_info
        else:
            print("Failed to retrieve channel info")
    else:
        print("Failed to retrieve the page:", response.status_code)
 
## Example Usage
if __name__ == "__main__":
    # Download a video
    video_url =  "ANY_YOUTUBE_VIDEO_URL"
    download_video(video_url)
 
    # Extract comments
    video_url_for_comments = "https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hzXabRASYs8"
    extract_comments(video_url_for_comments)
 
    # Extract metadata
    video_url_for_metadata = "ANY_YOUTUBE_VIDEO_URL"
    extract_metadata(video_url_for_metadata)
 
    # Scrape channel information
    api_key = 'YOUR_API_KEY'
    channel_url = 'https://www.youtube.com/@scraperapi/about'
    scrape_channel_info(channel_url, api_key)