Best Decodo (Smartproxy) Alternatives in 2026

Decodo — rebranded from Smartproxy in April 2025, part of the Tesonet/Oxylabs group — is a value-tier proxy network with scraping APIs layered on top for categories like SERP, e-commerce, web, and social. It's a genuinely good entry point if a large, configurable proxy pool at a lower price than the enterprise players is what you need. But "proxy-first" means you're often building your own scraper on top, billed per GB of bandwidth, with anti-bot success that trails the market's benchmark leaders. This guide covers the best alternatives in 2026: what each does well, where it falls short, and when to pick it instead.

Is Decodo actually the wrong tool?

Stay with Decodo if your main need is genuinely a large, configurable proxy network at a self-serve, lower-than-enterprise price — with category scraping APIs layered on top for common targets. Look at alternatives when your need is different:

• You want a documented endpoint that returns normalized JSON, not raw proxy access you build a scraper on top of.
• You need the highest independently benchmarked anti-bot success rate, not a mid-tier result at a lower price.
• You want to avoid per-GB bandwidth metering and the risk of a trial auto-renewing to a paid plan.
• Your target is broader than SERP, e-commerce, web, and social categories and needs a wider enterprise data platform.
• The real need is arbitrary-URL scraping with a lighter, developer-first API, not a proxy network underneath your own code.

What to look for in a Decodo alternative

• Output contract: raw proxy access you build on, or a documented JSON schema per endpoint?
• Anti-bot success rate: independently benchmarked, or self-reported?
• Pricing shape: per-GB bandwidth metering, or a fixed cost per successful request?
• Trial terms: does it auto-renew to a paid card, and how easy is a refund?
• Target type: a known set of high-value platforms, or arbitrary sites you need proxies for?
• Developer trust signals: an established engineering community, or mostly affiliate-driven marketing?

The best Decodo alternatives in 2026

There is no single winner — the right pick depends on whether you need raw proxies, a documented endpoint, or a lighter generic scraping API. Here is the landscape at a glance, then a closer look at each.

1. Crawlora — structured data, no bandwidth metering

When you need normalized JSON from specific public sources — Google Search, Google Maps, Amazon, TikTok, YouTube, Product Hunt, Google Finance — a structured platform API skips proxy sourcing and per-GB metering entirely. You call a documented endpoint and get the same fields back every time:

curl -s -X POST "https://api.crawlora.net/api/v1/google/search" \
  -H "x-api-key: $CRAWLORA_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"keyword": "web scraping api", "language": "en", "country": "us", "limit": 10}'

import os
import requests

resp = requests.post(
    "https://api.crawlora.net/api/v1/google/search",
    headers={"x-api-key": os.environ["CRAWLORA_API_KEY"]},
    json={"keyword": "web scraping api", "language": "en", "country": "us", "limit": 10},
)
for row in resp.json()["data"]["result"]:
    print(row["position"], row["title"], row["link"])

The response is normalized JSON you can store directly (check the API docs for the current schema; official SDKs wrap the same endpoints):

{
  "code": 200,
  "msg": "OK",
  "data": {
    "result": [
      { "position": 1, "title": "Example result", "website_name": "Example", "link": "https://example.com/", "Snippet": "Snippet text shown under the result." }
    ]
  }
}

When to choose it: your product depends on a handful of known platforms and you want request-based credit pricing you can predict, instead of per-GB bandwidth metering and trial auto-renewal. See Crawlora vs Decodo. It is not a standalone proxy network; if your main requirement is a large, configurable proxy pool, Decodo remains a reasonable, lower-cost fit.

2. Bright Data — the widest proxy network and benchmark-leading unblocker

Bright Data sits above Decodo on scale (roughly 150M audited IPs) and independently benchmarked anti-bot success, at a correspondingly higher price and heavier procurement (KYC, monthly minimums).

When to choose it: anti-bot success rate on the hardest targets is the priority and you can absorb Bright Data's higher entry cost.

3. Oxylabs — Decodo's larger sibling, broader enterprise scale

Oxylabs is part of the same Tesonet/Oxylabs group as Decodo, but positioned for larger enterprise deployments with a broader proxy and scraper-API product line.

When to choose it: you like the group's proxy quality but need more scale, more product depth, or more enterprise support than Decodo's self-serve tier offers.

4. Zyte — benchmark-leading anti-bot for custom crawlers

Zyte has ranked #1 in independent anti-bot benchmarks (Proxyway) and provides Zyte API plus ban-handling for the Scrapy ecosystem.

When to choose it: you're building custom crawlers at scale and anti-bot success rate matters more than proxy price, with pricing structured around per-target difficulty tiers rather than raw bandwidth.

5. ScrapingBee, ZenRows, ScraperAPI — developer-first generic scraping APIs

If what you actually want is a scraping API rather than a proxy network to build on, these developer-first APIs handle proxies and JS rendering behind a single request-response call. Compare Crawlora vs ScrapingBee, vs ZenRows, and vs ScraperAPI; see also ScraperAPI alternatives.

When to choose it: your targets are arbitrary sites, you want a simpler request-based bill instead of GB metering, and you're happy to own the parsing.

6. Apify — an actor marketplace with prebuilt scrapers

Apify organizes scraping around thousands of prebuilt "Actors" plus scheduling and storage — useful if your real need is ready-made scrapers rather than proxies you build your own tooling on top of. See Apify alternatives.

When to choose it: you want a platform with prebuilt scrapers and automation rather than raw proxy access.

7. SerpApi, DataForSEO — SERP and SEO data

If what you actually need from Decodo's SERP scraping API is search results, a dedicated SERP API is more direct. SerpApi covers many engines and SERP features; DataForSEO bundles SERPs with keyword and backlink datasets.

When to choose it: rank tracking, SERP monitoring, or SEO tooling — not general proxy access.

8. Crawlee, Scrapy — free frameworks (pair with any proxy source)

Crawlee and Scrapy are mature, free open-source scraping frameworks. They don't replace a proxy network — you still need one underneath, whether that's Decodo, Oxylabs, or Bright Data — but they remove any framework licensing cost.

When to choose it: you want to own the scraping logic yourself and are choosing your proxy source independently.

Decodo's trade-offs, in plain terms

Decodo's pitch is genuinely simple: a large, configurable proxy network at a lower entry price than the enterprise players. But a few things are worth knowing before committing:

• Bandwidth is billed per GB on proxy plans, so cost scales with traffic volume, not with successful results — heavy pages and retries cost more even when they fail.
• Free trials can auto-renew into a paid plan, so check cancellation terms before starting one.
• Independent anti-bot benchmarks place Decodo in the mid-tier rather than at the top (Bright Data and Zyte lead), so expect more retries on the hardest protected targets.
• Marketing leans heavily on affiliate and review-site promotion rather than a strong organic developer community, so weigh third-party reviews accordingly.

None of this makes Decodo a bad choice for its category — a configurable, lower-cost proxy network is exactly what it's built to be. It just means the total cost of a workflow depends heavily on traffic volume and retry rate, not just the advertised per-GB rate.

Decodo vs Crawlora: feature by feature

For the most common either/or — "should I build on proxy infrastructure, or call an endpoint for records?" — here is the head-to-head:

How to choose

1. Do you need raw proxy infrastructure to build your own scraper on, or a documented endpoint for a known platform?
2. Is anti-bot success rate on hard targets the priority, or is lower entry cost more important?
3. Can you tolerate per-GB bandwidth billing, or do you want a fixed cost per successful request?
4. Are your targets a handful of known platforms, or broader raw web access?
5. Is the real need actually SERP data or ready-made scrapers, rather than proxy infrastructure?

If the answer points to known platforms and predictable per-request pricing, a structured API like Crawlora is the cleaner fit; if it points to raw proxy infrastructure at the highest success rate, Bright Data or Zyte are the stronger picks; if a configurable, lower-cost proxy network is genuinely what you need, Decodo remains a reasonable choice.

Need a documented endpoint instead of per-GB proxy billing?

Normalized JSON, managed proxies and retries, one predictable credit weight per endpoint billed only on success. 2,000 free credits a month, no card.

Try the PlaygroundCrawlora vs Decodo

Next steps

Try it first, free: turn any URL into clean Markdown with the Free Web Scraper — no signup, no API key.

Compare options on the comparison index, test a Crawlora endpoint in the Playground, browse the API docs, and wire data into an agent with the hosted MCP server.

Sources

Related reading

• Bright Data Alternatives — when the widest proxy network and enterprise scale are the actual requirement.
• Apify Alternatives — when an actor marketplace is or isn't the right shape.
• ScraperAPI Alternatives — when a generic scraper is the right fit.
• Is Web Scraping Legal in 2026? — the legal basics before you collect at scale.