NetNut has rapidly grown into one of the most well-known brands in the proxy space since its launch in 2017. Backed by $10 million in funding, the company has acquired smaller providers like BidProxy to expand its server infrastructure across 30+ locations globally.
Founded originally in Israel, NetNut is now headquartered in Miami, Florida after a merger with the NASDAQ-listed company Safe-T Group in 2021. Safe-T specializes in cybersecurity and privacy solutions for businesses, bringing deep expertise in data delivery networks.
But what exactly does NetNut offer residential proxy users? In this comprehensive guide, we‘ll take an in-depth look at NetNut‘s services, performance benchmarks, pricing, and ease of use.
Whether you‘re considering NetNut for web scraping, sneaker bots, market research, or managing social media accounts, this review will help you decide if they are the right residential proxy provider for your needs.
Contents
Overview of NetNut‘s Proxy Networks
NetNut advertises three main types of proxy services:
Datacenter Proxies
These are shared public IPs that automatically rotate with each new request. With over 110,000 datacenter IPs, NetNut has one of the largest pools available.
However, these basic proxies only allow targeting the United States as a whole. There is no ability to target specific states or cities.
Datacenter proxies are best suited for basic web scraping or data collection projects where location targeting is not required.
Residential Proxies
NetNut‘s core offering is their global pool of residential IPs. Residential proxies work by routing traffic through real home and mobile internet connections.
This provides better mimicry of organic human users compared to datacenter proxies. Rotating residential proxies also help avoid IP blocks when scraping or automating tasks on heavily monitored sites.
According to NetNut‘s reported figures, their residential proxy network includes 10-20 million monthly IPs covering over 150 countries.
Within the United States, you can target right down to the state and city-level. For other countries, targeting is limited to the country scale.
NetNut claims their residential proxy network is the "world‘s fastest". We‘ll evaluate those speed claims later on through hands-on performance benchmarks.
ISP Proxies
Also referred to as static residential proxies, NetNut‘s ISP proxies offer around 1 million IPs sourced directly from internet service providers.
Compared to residential proxies, ISP proxies keep the same IP assignment static rather than rotating frequently. This can be useful for consistency when accessing accounts or services that recognize your IP.
Location targeting is more limited as well, with ISP proxies focused mainly on the United States and parts of Europe.
Next, let‘s take a deeper look at how NetNut‘s residential proxies perform when put to the test.
NetNut Residential Proxy Performance Benchmarks
To measure the performance of NetNut‘s residential proxies, we conducted a series of benchmark tests from a server based in Germany in early 2022.
We evaluated metrics like IP pool depth, connection speed, success rates, and more using real-world tools:
Pool Depth
First, we tested how many unique IPs you can expect to get from NetNut‘s residential proxy network.
Having a large pool that provides predominantly unique IPs is important to avoid reusing IPs and getting blocked.
We made 1 million requests through NetNut‘s residential proxy gateway and measured unique IP rates:
| Total Requests | 1 million |
| Unique IPs | 551,049 |
| Unique IP % | 55.1% |
This shows over half of the IPs returned were unique, indicating good pool depth.
We also checked unique IP rates when routing through specific country gateways:
| Country | Requests | Unique IPs | Unique IP % |
| United States | 300,000 | 163,176 | 55.3% |
| United Kingdom | 300,000 | 98,499 | 35.3% |
| Germany | 300,000 | 38,299 | 14.4% |
The United States proxy pool has excellent depth, with over half of IPs still unique after 300,000 requests.
Other countries like Germany showed lower unique IP rates. This indicates NetNut‘s US residential proxy pool is much larger than other locations currently.
Overall, the IP pool size is competitive with other major residential proxy providers like Oxylabs, Smartproxy, and Luminati. BrightData edged out NetNut slightly with over 60% unique IPs returned in their gateway during our tests.
Next, let‘s look at connection speed and latency.
Connection Speed
Fast proxies can load target sites quicker and are less likely to run into timeouts. We tested NetNut‘s speeds using a benchmarking scraper that loaded a test page:
| Location | Average Response Time |
| United States | 0.86 seconds |
| United Kingdom | 1.05 seconds |
| Germany | 1.02 seconds |
| France | 1.35 seconds |
Response times were excellent across the board, with sub-second speeds in most countries tested.
As advertised, NetNut‘s US residential proxies were blazing fast, with an average response time of just 0.86 seconds. This was up to 2x faster than competitors in our testing.
The speeds outside North America were competitive as well, outpacing similar providers like GeoSurf, Luminati, and Smartproxy.
Only Oxylabs and BrightData edged out NetNut in international response times by small fractions of a second.
Clearly, NetNut‘s infrastructure and peering invests are paying off when it comes to fast response times.
Reliability
In addition to speed, we also tested how reliably NetNut‘s residential proxies could access targets without failing:
| Total Requests | 1 million |
| Successful Requests | 929,119 |
| Success Rate | 92.9% |
On average, NetNut achieved a 92.9% success rate in our benchmarking. The majority of requests succeeded without any errors.
However, this success rate lags behind the top providers in 2022. Vendors like BrightData, Oxylabs, and Smartproxy all achieve 99%+ success rates nowadays.
The 7% failed requests were caused by timeouts and read errors indicating some connectivity issues in NetNut‘s residential proxy network.
While not perfect, a 92-93% success rate is still decent reliability for most use cases. The ultra-high availability claimed by NetNut‘s marketing does not seem to fully pan out when put to the test however.
Results on Real Websites
In addition to raw speed and reliability metrics, we also tested NetNut‘s residential proxies manually on real sites:
| Website | Success Rate | Fails/Errors | Blocks | Response Time |
| 1.21% | 98.79% | 0% | 2.17sec | |
| 87.34% | 11.54% | 1.13% | 4.99sec | |
| Amazon | 83.72% | 10.59% | 5.69% | 6.35sec |
Google blocked nearly all requests due to NetNut‘s default config. Access can be requested by contacting support.
On sites like Instagram and Amazon, connection errors caused 10-15% of requests to fail. However, blocks were minimal showing NetNut IPs avoid abuse blacklists.
Response times were good but slower than our raw benchmarks above due to real-world site loads.
Based on these tests, NetNut delivered usable but not perfect results for ecommerce and social media sites. The proxy network lacks some of the fine-tuning you‘ll find with providers like BrightData who optimize IPs specifically for sites like Instagram or Amazon.
Evaluating NetNut‘s Pricing Plans
NetNut bases pricing on data usage as you‘d expect from a pay-as-you-go residential proxy provider. Here are NetNut‘s starting costs across their different proxy types:
| Proxy Type | Starting Price |
| Datacenter | $20 per 20GB |
| Residential | $20 per 1GB |
| ISP/Static | $25 per 1GB |
At the low end, NetNut is more expensive than competitors for residential proxies:
| Provider | Starting Price Per GB |
| NetNut | $20 |
| BrightData | $10 |
| Smartproxy | $8 |
However, NetNut‘s pricing becomes competitive at scale. For example, their 10GB plan lowers the per GB rate to $14.
Enterprise plans with very large monthly quantities can negotiate rates around $3-5 per GB depending on volume.
NetNut also offers cheaper datacenter proxies starting at $1 per GB for basic use cases. This makes them one of the most affordable providers in this category.
Advanced features like dedicated account managers, whitelisted IPs, and API access come at an added cost. Support is included by default though.
Overall, NetNut‘s pricing model favors heavy proxy users over smaller customers. Proxies at scale is NetNut‘s sweet spot that sets them apart from competitors.
Getting Started With NetNut Proxies
Based on my experience, here is an overview of what to expect when getting set up with NetNut residential proxies:
Account Registration
Registering a NetNut account is simple and completely self-serve. Just enter your contact details and intended use case on their website to instantly create an account.
The entire process takes under 5 minutes and does not require sales calls or approval waits.
Proxy Activation
Before proxies are activated, NetNut requires passing KYC verification by submitting your name, address, email, and phone number.
This is an important compliance step to ensure their residential IPs aren‘t misused or abused. Expect proxy activation within a business day or two after completing KYC.
Dashboard Access
NetNut provides access to a dashboard for managing your account. You can view usage graphs, order or upgrade plans, see invoices, and open support tickets.
The dashboard isn‘t as polished as competitors but gets the job done. Expect some quirks with the interface.
Proxy Implementation
NetNut uses a hostname authentication method for accessing their proxy servers. Simply add your credentials and desired location targeting to the username string when making requests.
There are some code examples for different languages provided. But you‘ll need to assemble the full implementation yourself based on limited documentation.
Support is there to help fill any knowledge gaps if you get stuck. Those with programming experience should have an easier time getting proxies implemented.
Support & Documentation
Documentation is NetNut‘s weak point. For crucial details on proxy usage, rotations, and restrictions, you‘ll need to reach out to support representatives directly.
Email and chat support is available on all plans. For high volume usage, you get a dedicated account manager via Skype for quicker responses.
Overall, expect leaning heavily on NetNut‘s helpful but limited support until you get up to speed with using their residential proxies effectively.
When to Use (and Not Use) NetNut
Based on this comprehensive review, here is my verdict on the best uses cases for NetNut residential proxies:
Good Fit For:
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Web scraping and data mining at scale. NetNut proxies really shine for heavy usage with their optimized infrastructure. Unique IPs and speed hold up well under load.
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Targets with heavy bot protection. Fast IPs and residential stickiness help maintain access to sites actively blocking scrapers and bots.
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Location-specific use cases. Targeting NetNut proxies by city or state works well, especially in the US.
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Resellers and bot providers. Dedicated accounts, teams, and whitelabeling options cater to this audience.
Not Ideal For:
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Smaller proxy users. With proxies starting at $20/GB, NetNut is expensive for light scraping or research. Consider a provider like GeoSurf instead.
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Perfect reliability on heavy sites. While decent, NetNut‘s 92-93% success rate trails leaders like BrightData. Site-specific optimization could be better.
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Quick setups and self-service. You‘ll invest time into support calls learning NetNut‘s system versus faster onboarding elsewhere.
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Accessing Google. Google targeting requires escalations – not supported out-of-the-box.
Final Verdict on NetNut
In closing, NetNut delivers very fast residential proxies that stand out for high-volume usage. The network infrastructure and unique IP counts impress based on our benchmarking.
However, smaller proxy users may find the hands-on experience lacking compared to streamlined competitors. Documentation gaps and clunky UIs slow down the learning curve.
For large scraping or automation projects, NetNut‘s scale and performance impress. But those needing robust support from day one may prefer providers like BrightData or Oxylabs.
Overall, NetNut fills an important niche with their high-performance residential proxies purpose-built for heavy usage. Just be prepared for a steeper onboarding process in exchange for those speeds and scale capabilities down the road.
