Top 10 Free Proxies for Web Scraping: 2025

When you engage in web scraping, one of the most important tools you need is a reliable proxy service. Web scraping proxies allow you to remain anonymous, bypass geo-blocking, and avoid detection by anti-scraping measures. Proxies act as an intermediary between your scraper and the target website, making it harder for the website to trace your real IP address or block you for suspicious activity.

However, finding the right free proxy for scraping can be a bit difficult. While free web proxies are a cost-effective option, they are often limited in terms of speed, reliability, and location diversity. To help you make the best decision, we have compiled a list of the top 10 free proxies for web scraping. These proxies offer different features and benefits, so you can choose the one that best suits your scraping needs. Read on to learn about each platform and how they can enhance your web scraping experience.

What is a proxy? How can you define proxies and why do you need them for web scraping?

A proxy is an intermediary server that sits between your device and the website you’re accessing. It acts as a gateway, handling requests on your behalf and forwarding the responses to you. When you use a proxy, your real IP address is hidden, and the website only sees the proxy’s IP address.

This provides several advantages, especially when engaging in web scraping：

• For web scraping, proxies are essential for maintaining anonymity and avoiding blocks. Websites often detect scraping activities by monitoring unusual request patterns and tracking IP addresses. If too many requests come from a single IP in a short period, the website may block that IP, halting your scraping operation. Using a web scraping proxy helps you avoid these restrictions by rotating IP addresses and distributing requests across different locations. This reduces the risk of getting detected and blocked.
• In addition to this, proxies also allow you to bypass geo-restrictions. Some websites restrict access to certain content based on the visitor’s location, but with free web proxies or paid proxy services, you can mask your IP and simulate visits from different countries, gaining access to geo-restricted data.
• Moreover, proxies improve the speed of your scraping tasks by allowing multiple requests to be made simultaneously from different IPs, thereby speeding up data collection without triggering anti-scraping defenses. This makes proxies crucial when scraping large volumes of data or dealing with websites that have stringent scraping protections.

How to Choose the Best Free Proxies for Web Scraping

Free web proxies may seem like an attractive option due to their zero cost, but they often have limitations that may affect the efficiency and reliability of data crawling.

Here are the main criteria to keep in mind:

1. IP Rotation and Freshness: For successful web scraping, you need a proxy that can rotate IP addresses regularly. Frequent IP rotation ensures that your crawling activity does not trigger anti-crawling mechanisms. Many free proxies offer limited IP rotation, which makes them less reliable for large-scale or high-frequency scraping tasks. Make sure the proxy you choose supports frequent IP changes to avoid detection.

2. Speed and reliability: The performance of the agent is crucial for efficient crawling. A slow proxy can significantly slow down the data extraction process. While free web proxies may not be as fast as premium services, it’s important to test their response times before using them for scraping. Some free proxies may have bandwidth limitations or be overcrowded, resulting in slow speeds and unreliable connections.

3. Location Diversity: Being able to select proxies from different geographical locations is crucial, especially when scraping geo-restricted content. Some websites block users based on their IP location, so accessing a proxy from multiple countries can help you bypass these restrictions.

4. Security and Anonymity: A good web scraping proxy should ensure your anonymity by masking your real IP address. When choosing a free proxy, always prioritize one that offers strong encryption and reliable anonymity, especially when dealing with sensitive data.

5. Error rate and blocked requests: A high-quality proxy should have a low error rate and be able to handle a large number of requests without being blocked.

The above are the key points to pay attention to when choosing a free proxy. In the following section, we will recommend the 10 best free web scraping proxies for you.

Top 10 Free Proxies for Web Scraping |Tested Checklist

As modern web scraping technology continues to increase in complexity, the proxy network software market reached $5.2 billion in 2023 and is expected to grow to $12.5 billion by 2031, a compound annual growth rate of 9.5%. This growth reflects the growing demand for reliable proxies among individuals and businesses, and having access to the right proxy service can make or break the success of your web scraping efforts. With this in mind, we have compiled a comprehensive list of the top ten free web scraping proxies, each tested for reliability, speed, and security. In the list below, you'll find the strengths and limitations of each option.

#1 Scrapeless Free Trial

Scrapeless provides over 80 million residential proxies that can easily bypass anti-crawler measures. The proxy service covers more than 195 countries and more than 2,000 cities. It supports HTTP(S)/Socks5. It also provides a free trial plan, which is very suitable for large-scale crawling.