Residential Proxies
According to Proxyway’s 2023 survey, residential proxies remain the most sought-after product across all proxy providers. With the industry reporting strong growth all around and new proxy providers joining the fray, users are having a tough time choosing the best service provider for their needs. Moreover, the intricacies involved in assessing their features, reliability, and performance can make the process even more complicated.
To simplify this process, we will explore and compare two big names in the world of residential proxies: Bright Data and IPRoyal.
In this article, we’ll compare the features, offerings, pricing, ethical compliance, and developer experience, shedding light on the nuances that set them apart to help you choose the ideal provider for your needs.
Introduction to IPRoyal and Bright Data
IPRoyal
Established in 2020, IPRoyal is a fairly new entrant in the residential proxy market. The company started its business by initially renting its IP space to other companies, but gradually shifted to directly selling proxies to users.
IPRoyal currently offers three types of proxies (residential, datacenter, and mobile – with a special focus on proxies aimed at sneaker aficionados). Initially, the company offered proxies at a cheaper rate but following a hike in 2022, their prices moved closer to the mid-range provider bracket. Its target customers still however remain the small users, even though the company claims to be reliable enough for large-scale projects.
Bright Data
Bright Data began as one of the pioneers of residential proxies when the rest of the industry was still pushing datacenter proxies. Currently, the company has become a behemoth in the proxy provider market, putting great emphasis on ethical sourcing and usage of residential proxies, resulting in a highly reliable and trustworthy service.
At present, 95% of Bright Data’s proxy usage is taken up by residential and datacenter proxies. While the company mainly caters to enterprise customers, including Fortune 500 companies, it provides multiple services such as a customizable proxy service, reliable web scrapers for major e-commerce platforms, customized datasets, etc. that a wide range of users can make use of.
While IPRoyal has lofty ambitions of becoming one of the top proxy providers in the world, and although its traffic has considerably increased since 2020, Bright Data’s proxy offering remains more robust, reliable, diverse, and flexible for all purposes. In the following sections, we’ll do a detailed comparison of both providers and help you identify the better option.
IPRoyal vs Bright Data: Points of Comparison
IP Count and Proxy Pool Size
Bright Data holds a significant advantage here. According to the numbers advertised on both websites, Bright Data has over 72 million (6.5 million daily) residential IPs and over 7 million mobile proxies spread over 195+ countries, whereas, IPRoyal only has 2 million residential IPs and 1 million mobile proxies, spread over 195 countries.
Going beyond advertised numbers – per Proxyway’s research using 500,0001 requests for each country pool – Bright Data turned up a balanced proxy pool well-spread over several countries, notably having over 350,000 unique IPs from the US. From a random IP pool (without any location filters applied), for 1 million requests it returned a unique IP count of over 800,000.
In comparison, IPRoyal, although claiming to have worldwide coverage only returned ~153,000 unique IPs when requests were run without using any location filter – which is five times lower compared to Bright Data. Using location filters, IPRoyal returned significantly fewer IPs from all major locations compared to Bright Data, moreover, its US pool appeared to be especially poor, returning only ~62,000 unique IPs with around 11% getting flagged as datacenter proxies.
For Bright Data especially, this translates to an extensive and diverse pool of IPs at the users’ disposal, ensuring robust and reliable proxy services even with precise location filters enabled for any location on the planet. In contrast, IPRoyal’s IP count is nowhere near as extensive and diverse as Bright Data’s, and most of its proxies were identified by an IP database to be coming from landline or mobile connections.
| Criteria | IPRoyal | Bright Data |
| Total Residential IPs | 2 million | Over 72 million (6.5 million IPs daily) |
| Geographic Distribution | Not as extensive and Bright Data, spread over 195 countries, only 62,502 unique IPs from the US | Spread over 195+ countries; well-balanced pool over several countries, notably 350,000 unique IPs from the US |
| Random IP Pool (1M requests) | ~153,000 unique IPs | ~800,000 unique IPs |
| Country IP Pool (500K requests) | IPRoyal returned considerably less unique IPs from the US, UK, Germany, India, France, and Australia | Bright Data returned more unique IPs from the US, UK, Germany, India, France, and Australia |
Bright Data is the clear winner here. Its sheer number of residential proxies and its high unique IP count, give it a considerable edge over IPRoyal.
[1] 140,000 from Australia
Response Time and Success Rate
Per Proxyway’s research, while targeting a global CDN, Bright Data ensured an average success rate of 99.17% and a response time averaging 1.02 seconds. IPRoyal, on the other hand, gave a subpar (lowest among the ten providers tested by Proxyway) success rate of 89.05% despite claiming ~99.7% and an abysmal (worst among the ten providers tested by Proxyway) response time of 3.73 seconds on average for several kilobytes of data.
| Criteria | IPRoyal | Bright Data |
| Average Response Time | 3.73 s | 1.02 s |
| Average Success Rate | 89.5% | 99.17% |
As seen above, Bright Data is ahead of IPRoyal by quite some distance.
Features
ASN/ZIP Targeting
The first point of comparison when it comes to features is IP Targeting. Both offer city, country, region, and ASN targeting, however, there are two crucial points of difference.
One, IPRoyal only offers ASN targeting for custom plans, and according to Proxyway’s research, only to customers with high spend numbers already. Two, since Bright Data’s network is more extensive, it can provide ZIP level targeting to regions that IPRoyal can’t.
What exactly is ASN/ZIP targeting and why would you need it?
ASN and ZIP code targeting go beyond typical geo-targeting to provide an even more detailed level of control and customization for internet traffic, allowing users to interact with online content or services as if they were accessing them from specific ZIP codes or network providers.
Here’s why this level of granularity is needed:
- Load Balancing: Distributing traffic across different ASNs or ZIP codes can help balance the load on servers, ensuring optimal performance and reliability.
- Extracting Region-Specific Content: For applications like web scraping or crawling, ASN or ZIP code targeting allows users to scrape localized data from specific regions or from servers associated with certain ASNs. Beyond precision, ASN/ZIP targeting enhances operational efficiency by eliminating irrelevant data, particularly crucial when dealing with vast datasets.
- Ad Verification: Some websites may use ASN or ZIP code targeting to verify the display of ads in specific geographic regions or on networks associated with certain ASNs. Matching ASN here acts as an anti-geoblock.
- Security and Privacy: Organizations often implement security measures and filters at the network level. ASN/ZIP targeting enables the selection of proxies that align with the target website’s accessibility requirements, reducing the likelihood of detection or blocks.
This approach transcends one-size-fits-all methodologies, enabling users to better plan scraping strategies, select appropriate IPs or proxies, and mitigate risks. For users engaged in web scraping or data mining, this means not only accuracy but relevance in the extracted data, a critical aspect in the age of information overload.
Here’s how IPRoyal and Bright Data differ when it comes to IP targeting, in general.
| Criteria | IPRoyal | Bright Data |
| IP Targeting Features | City and country-based targeting | City and country-based targeting, with additional fine-grained ASN/ZIP targeting |
| ASN/ZIP Targeting | Only ASN targeting, and only available only for enterprise clients | Both ASN and ZIP targeting options, available to all, providing detailed control and customization for internet traffic |
| Coverage | Can’t access certain regions because of its less diverse IP pool | Can access almost any location on the planet since its network consists of IPs from almost every region |
Hence when it comes to IP targeting, both companies offer a comparable level of granularity, but Bright Data edges past IPRoyal because of its wider coverage.
Scalability
Both offer sub-user management, with both credential and IP whitelisting for authentication. There are no limits on the number of sub-users or whitelisted IPs, and you can drill down further and set a custom TTL and IP whitelisting on a per-sub-user level. This is ideal for companies that have a large number of employees or departments, allowing them to seamlessly integrate proxies across teams without having to create separate accounts.
The major difference here is a point of convenience. IPRoyal offers only strict traffic-based plans (you simply buy GB of traffic), meaning your scrapers will stop working once traffic is used up, until you manually top it up. Bright Data on the other hand offers a credit-based plan that switches over to PAYG (per GB) once you use up credits for the month, meaning your data extraction is never hindered.
The other benefit to Bright Data’s approach is that it allows for tighter, individualized settings for each access point (better security).
It’s hard to call it here, but we’re leaning towards Bright Data just for the seamless switching over to pay-as-you-go once you run out of traffic. Regardless, the fact that both offer unlimited sub-users and IP whitelisting with no additional charge per IP/user is a breath of fresh air.
| Criteria | IPRoyal | Bright Data |
| Limitations | Traffic-based plans only (that thankfully never expire). Once used up, service stops, unless you buy more. | Credit-based plan, and once they’re used up, it switches over to pay-as-you-go per GB of traffic, meaning your operations are never hindered or require manual topping up. More convenient. |
| Individualized Settings | Limited individualized settings for each access point. | Allows tighter, individualized settings for each access point via the Proxy Manager app. |
| Flexibility in Plans | Traffic-based plans only. | Open-ended approach – can have PAYG as well as credit-based plans with PAYG fallback. |
Configuration
IPRoyal’s proxy configuration is streamlined, but impressive – you set up proxy access in its control panel, specifying country/state, type of proxy ( SOCKS5 vs HTTP), rotation strategy (sticky or per-request), min and max time-to-live in minutes, set up credentials for each proxy, and then export the list of proxies in the HOST:PORT:USERNAME:PASSWORD format, ready to be consumed however you choose.
Bright Data offers streamlined configuration in its control panel, and if you require more advanced proxy management and customization, or manage complex IP rotations, you can do so via its open-source Proxy Manager app. The sheer number of advanced features and configurations made possible by the app makes it ideal for pretty much any use case. Via the app, you have access to:
- Fine-grained selection of countries and regions to target
- Determining user access to each proxy using white/blacklists.
- Fully customizable IP rotation – complete with automatic User-Agent header rotation.
- Robust, centralized metrics/logging on a per-request level for enhanced performance tracking of all IPs in use.
- Waterfall Rotations – Route requests through multiple proxy networks while setting custom rules to optimize costs.
- Efficient bandwidth management via regex-based and custom rules to selectively block data.
- Need more proxies? You can just add your own external proxies from any other vendor to the Proxy Manager – giving you centralized control over your entire fleet of proxies.
The Proxy Manager app can run on-prem as a Windows/Linux binary – meaning you retain full control over permissions, management, and monitoring – or, as a managed solution on Bright Data’s Cloud as a web app, giving you the privilege of live, 24×7 server status monitoring by Bright Data, guaranteeing uptime.
| Criteria | IPRoyal | Bright Data |
| Configuration Approach | Streamlined proxy configuration. | Advanced proxy management and rotation strategies possible via open-source Proxy Manager app |
| Configuration Features | Reduce IP pool to only serve high-quality proxies, filter IPs based on country/region and session type, choose between HTTP/HTTPS and SOCKS5 proxies. | Fine-grained country and region targeting, user access control, customizable IP rotation, robust metrics/logging, waterfall rotations, efficient bandwidth management |
| Proxy Manager App | Not available | Available for advanced customization and management of proxies |
| Export Options | Copy or download proxy list in TXT format, with each entry in the HOST:PORT:USERNAME:PASSWORD format. | Proxy Manager app handles everything; can run on-prem (Windows/Linux) or as a managed solution on Bright Data’s Cloud as a web app. |
In essence, Bright Data’s combination of streamlined proxy configuration and the Proxy Manager app offers users a robust and flexible solution for setting up and managing proxies, providing a clear advantage over the more constrained options offered by IPRoyal.
Auto-Rotation
If you have a task that involves consistent data extraction or monitoring, what you’d need is a stable IP address for an extended period with minimal disruptions. That’s precisely what you get from Bright Data’s residential peers – ideal for these tasks. Bright Data’s non-time limited sessions with auto-rotation per request, or per session, brings dynamism to your data scraping needs.
For IPRoyal, it’s possible to rotate IPs per request, or specify a sticky session between one second and seven days – with one major caveat – there’s no guarantee that an IP will stay available for that long. You also get the “High-end pool” option to cut off proxies that are slower and less stable, but that just lowers IPRoyal’s limited IP pool even further.
Bright Data wins here by its sheer number of quality residential proxies alone. Should you opt to rotate, you’re guaranteed to get a superior proxy each time you opt for a new IP whether it’s per request or per session. Plus, Bright Data provides the option of getting dedicated IPs which means more stability for bigger projects spanning hours.
| Criteria | IPRoyal | Bright Data |
| Session Stability | Depends on IP availability, configurable auto-rotation per request or per session (1 s to 7 days) | Non-time limited sessions with configurable auto-rotation per request, or per session |
| Suitable for | Not ideal for enterprise-grade data extraction because of a limited pool of stable IPs | Ideal for consistent data extraction or monitoring tasks requiring stable IPs for extended periods |
| Flexibility and Adaptability | Offers a certain degree of flexibility but hurt by a lack of a high number of superior proxies. | Offers a higher level of flexibility and adaptability with auto-rotation, providing dynamic proxy performance |
| Dedicated IPs | Absent | Present |
In a nutshell, Bright Data’s peers with auto-rotation, whether per request or per session, offer a level of flexibility and adaptability that IPRoyal’s sessions can’t quite match. Even though IPRoyal provides a level of flexibility and customization when it comes to auto-rotation, it can’t guarantee a stable connection over longer periods because of a significantly lower pool of high-quality IPs.
User/Developer Experience
IPRoyal doesn’t have a dedicated documentation section. Instead, the company has a blog from where users can look up different blog posts for the information they’re looking for. Even though information on their website has increased over the years, the company still doesn’t have proper configuration instructions and troubleshooting guides. Documentation for its sub-user management API, however, is well maintained. But for the rest, IPRoyal falls way short of mid-range and premium providers in this regard.
Bright Data, in comparison, provides extensive documentation, web data masterclass, videos, blogs, webinars, code snippets for multiple programming languages, and plenty of presets to help users who are developers. The information on Bright Data’s website, is, in fact, more than sufficient.
IPRoyal has very generous traffic-based plans, with higher tiers costing as low as 2.45$ per GB of traffic. Despite such attractive rates, IPRoyal has a low IP count and an even lower unique IP count which translates to less stability. Now for small-scale usage, this might not be a big factor, but for enterprise-grade usage, this will be a serious disadvantage.
Moreover, the dashboard provided by IPRoyal for tracking usage is very limited, providing only a number to denote remaining traffic, with no visualization. You get reports in the form of CSV files which makes it more inconvenient. However, if you add a minimum of 200$ to your IPRoyal wallet, you get access to a separate tab and an API for managing sub-users.
In contrast, Bright Data uses the concept of “Zones.”
Zones are essentially shared ecosystems, in which users can have multiple active plans for a specific service and manage them all in the same dashboard. Users can also track usage across multiple zones in customizable graphs. Having detailed usage statistics on a per-proxy and per-zone level on one screen with proper visualization makes it relatively easier to keep track of usage and manage your subscription which would be complicated if you had to download reports in CSV format.
| Criteria | IPRoyal | Bright Data |
| User-Friendliness | Non-expiring traffic, but not much customization beyond rotation settings and location-based targeting (ASN/ZIP targeting only available to enterprise users) | Granular proxy management, especially beneficial for enterprise users with experienced developers |
| Documentation and Support | Lack of proper documentation, configuration instructions, and troubleshooting guides. API documentation is well-maintained. | Extensive documentation, web data masterclass, videos, blogs, webinars, and code snippets; may be too detailed for regular users |
| Subscription and Proxy Management | Traffic-based plans, proxy management via a widget that lets you manage rotation duration, set location, and choose connection protocol | Uses the concept of “Zones” for multiple active plans, providing a unified dashboard for easier management and tracking of usage |
| Tracking and Usage Statistics | Doesn’t provide any visualization, dashboard only provides a number denoting the amount of traffic left. Generates report in the form of CSV, making for inconvenient usage-tracking | Uses “Zones” for tracking usage across multiple plans, offering detailed statistics on a per-proxy and per-zone level in one screen |
Pricing
Both IPRoyal and Bright Data have multiple plans and tiers for their residential proxy service.
IPRoyal has one of the cheapest proxy tariffs among mid-range providers. Pricing starts at 7$ per GB and gets cheaper per GB as you scale up, going as low as 2.45$ per GB for 5000GB of data. Plus, there’s no expiry date for the traffic you purchase, so it’s better to purchase more traffic right at the outset to lower the amount you spend per GB. IPRoyal gives you the option to maintain a wallet on the platform, letting you purchase plans and top up traffic as and when required, without having to transfer money repeatedly. This option also lets you pay using Bitcoins, something the crypto-faithful would appreciate.
While its pricing might be attractive, IPRoyal doesn’t give you much besides cheap, non-expiring traffic. In terms of features and customization, it falls way short of other competitors.
Bright Data, on the other hand, provides a great deal of flexibility. Most of our plans are pay-as-you-go. You’d only have to commit if you are scaling up and opting for a larger plan. Bright Data’s tariff begins with a no-commitment pay-as-you-go plan, charging $10.5 per GB of traffic. We also have a micro plan that has traffic capped off at 1 GB, charging as low as $10 per month. You also have the option to opt for our free trial.
What makes Bright Data really stand out is the ability to customize the features. You can tailor each plan to your proxy usage by ticking off certain functionalities. Each add-on will add to your cost, but you’ll have fine-grained control over exactly what you want.
Bright Data is the more expensive option, but in terms of functionality and features added, it’s well worth the price. Plus, our proxy network is currently available at a 40% discount, offsetting the cost.
| Criteria | IPRoyal | Bright Data |
| Pricing Model | Tiered per traffic, price gets lower as you go up the tiers, more profitable if you buy higher tier plans as traffic doesn’t expire till you use it up. | Pay-as-you-go with customizable plans |
| Starting Price | $7 per GB, capped at 1GB | $10.5 per GB with a no-commitment pay-as-you-go plan, $10 per month for a micro plan (capped at 1GB) |
| Plan Flexibility | Larger plans increase traffic and not much else but non-expiring traffic is a nice feature to have | Highly customizable plans, add-ons available for fine-grained control over features |
| Cost vs. Functionality | Besides more traffic, higher tiers offer not much else in terms of features. Enterprise plans offer ASN/ZIP targeting. | More expensive, but offers extensive customization and additional features, currently available at a 40% discount; free trial option available for testing |
Ethical Compliance
When it comes to ethical compliance, IPRoyal provides very little assurance. Although on its website, the company claims to provide an ethical proxy network, not much detail is provided regarding the regulations and laws it complies with.
Bright Data, in contrast, is a big advocate of the ethical usage of residential proxies for the collection of data. Bright Data has blogs and articles explaining their process of ethically sourcing IPs and their stance on ethical data collection practices.
IPRoyal procures IPs via its web app Pawns.app, formerly known as IProyal Pawns. Not much else about the vetting process of IPs is explicitly mentioned on the website. KYC procedure for IPRoyal isn’t mandatory, however, without it service is limited. Those who opt for KYC will have to send their IDs to a third-party app called Idenfy.
Bright Data, in comparison, has provided ample information on its site regarding their ethical practices. From the information given on Bright Data’s website, we can gather that its IPs are obtained via Bright SDK, giving all the necessary information to potential peers prior to signing up and users may personally opt out any time they want.
Here’s a comparison of both providers based on key parameters related to ethical compliance.
| Criteria | IPRoyal | Bright Data |
| IP Sourcing | Via Pawns.app, but not much info is given about the vetting process | Uses Bright SDK, providing full details beforehand, and allows users to opt-out |
| Incentives | Pays per GB of traffic | Offers payment per GB, ad-free experiences, and ensures traffic routing doesn’t disrupt device functionality |
| Security/KYC | KYC is not mandatory, but service is limited without it. | Bright Data includes compliance officers for rigorous checks and approval of peers, requires compliance officer approval before onboarding |
| Usage Policy | Limits usage to specific cases like market research, education, travel, social media, e-commerce, etc. | Similar usage limitations, prohibits fraudulent activities |
| Abuse Prevention | Not much information is given | Automated checks, manual checks by compliance officers, and tools to prevent network abuse |
| Reseller Policy | Reselling is possible. Account owners who add a minimum of 200$ to their wallets, receive a reseller API and a separate tab on the dashboard for managing sub-users | Prohibits network or service reselling, detects violations promptly, and terminates accounts accordingly |
| Data Protection Laws | No mention of compliance to any well-known regulatory body. | Complies with GDPR and CCPA |
While IPRoyal lacks transparency, Bright Data’s commitment to transparency to the wider population comes as a stark contrast.
- If someone’s Personal Identifiable Information (PII) like an email address is inadvertently collected through Bright Data’s products from publicly available sources, we promptly notify the individual affected and provide them the means to delete their information from the company’s platform.
- We take this a step further by allowing verified email users to access a searchable database from where they can manage their online presence and if required, take steps to remove their PII from the public web.
Customer Service
Both IPRoyal and Bright Data offer around-the-clock 24/7 customer support.
IPRoyal provides support through email, Discord, or live chat, whereas Bright Data provides support via a ticket system, email, WhatsApp, and Telegram.
IPRoyal only supports English and Chinese, while Bright Data ensures industry-standard multilingual support for global users, along with dedicated account managers for certain plans. Both companies provide dashboards to help you monitor network performance and usage in real-time.
Compared to IPRoyal, Bright Data goes the extra mile by providing frequent feature releases and personalized customization based on your needs – be it a custom dataset, a feature request for your scrapers, or any proxy-related queries. While IPRoyal is rapidly growing, at present it has its limitations – good enough for small tasks, but not ideal for big projects.
Conclusion
To sum up, Bright Data’s residential proxy is superior to IPRoyal’s when it comes to IP count, the diverse feature set, the presence of dedicated IPs, and a patented, ethically sourced proxy network consisting of real residential IP addresses. However, this comes at a price – these aspects make Bright Data more expensive compared to IPRoyal.
IPRoyal, with its economical options, is more suited to small businesses and small-scale scraping projects. But if data extraction on an enterprise level is your forte, Bright Data’s plethora of features, fine-grained proxy configuration, and dedication to transparency and ethics make it the clear pick in that sector.
What is the rest of the industry saying?
- As per G2 Score, Bright Data currently sits at #1 in the G2 Proxy Network category – not surprising at all, given that it is adopted by Fortune 500 companies – while IPRoyal ranks #5, which is commendable in the industry, but Bright Data is the clear winner here by quite some distance.
- On Trustpilot, Bright Data boasts an impressive 4.5/5 rating based on 628 reviews, indicating a pretty strong vote of confidence from the user community. IPRoyal, on the other hand, has a 4.6/5 rating based on 1105 reviews. Given IPRoyal’s mainstream, small-scale user base, this result is an expected outcome.
