Proxyway Releases 2026 Proxy Server Market Report
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The annual research analyzes prevailing market trends and benchmarks 13 major proxy server providers. Proxyway, the independent researcher of proxies and web scraping infrastructure, has released the 2026 edition of Proxy Market Research.
Published every year since 2019, this report is widely regarded as a valuable tool for analysts, customers, and proxy server vendors alike. It tests and compares 13 major proxy server providers across key metrics: scale, infrastructure performance, and more. The performance benchmarks are based on millions of connection requests made throughout three weeks of testing.
In addition, the report provides an overview of industry trends, giving insights into the market as a whole. This section is enriched with answers from a questionnaire Proxyway sent to all participants.
AI Continues Growing the Proxy Server Market at an Incredible Pace
The main narrative revolves around artificial intelligence. According to the OECD, in 2025 investment into AI startups outweighed all other industries combined. As a foundational piece of web scraping infrastructure, proxies play a key role in training language models and ensuring web access for agentic applications.
AI-related demand has affected the proxy server market profoundly, to the point where major players have been growing by 50% or more year-over-year. For some, AI has become the largest vertical by volume of customers. The overarching aim for 2026 was ensuring capacity, as AI companies move toward more frequent data refreshes and build increasingly complex real-time systems.
Commoditization Continues, But Providers Find Ways to Compete
The barrier to entry remains low. Proxyway identified over 50 proxy server vendors established in 2025, the majority reselling residential proxy networks or erecting their own SIM card farms.
Though major providers have stopped waging a price war, access to residential proxies still costs up to 75% less than three years ago. In addition, grey market vendors are able to offer sub-dollar rates and even unmetered access plans, further pressuring lower market segments.Aside from enjoying the overall growth of the market, established providers compete on scalability: some networks surfaced over three million unique residential IPs in Proxyway’s tests.
Moreover, they put more focus on serving enterprise users and expanding vertically into less commoditized web scraping tools. Some have unlocked underserved but lucrative niches, such as scraping Asian e-commerce websites.
Botnets and Botnet-Backed Proxy Providers Destabilize the Market
The past few years have been marked by heightened botnet activity. Networks like Badbox 2.0 and Aisuru grew to tens of millions of devices, recruited primarily through vulnerable Android TV boxes or even picture frames. One of the botnet variations, Kimwolf, found a way to infect other household devices by exploiting security flaws in residential proxy networks.
The botnets drew the attention of high-profile organizations, including Google and the FBI. Their actions have particularly affected a conglomeration of Hong Kong-based providers which flooded the market between 2022 and 2025. While Google shut down a dozen of their storefronts in January 2026, Proxyway’s report identifies over 15 potentially related brands that remain in business.
The growing attention to web access infrastructure and the increasing viciousness of botnet operators create new challenges for legitimate proxy server vendors, emphasizing the need for responsible sourcing and governance of their infrastructures.