GeoSurf, a long-standing provider of premium proxy services, is shutting down on December 20, 2023, following a legal dispute with Bright Data. For those seeking alternatives, we’ve compiled a list of recommended proxy providers to meet your needs.

GeoSurf was established in 2009 by the Israeli company BiScience to assist businesses in localization testing. Over the years, it expanded into residential, datacenter, ISP, and mobile proxies, along with VPN services. Despite its high-quality proxies and location-targeting capabilities, GeoSurf’s premium pricing and lack of self-service options limited its accessibility.

While GeoSurf enjoyed a reputation for clean IPs and enterprise-grade services, its website showed signs of neglect, with outdated content and limited updates. Competitors like Bright Data and Oxylabs outpaced GeoSurf with aggressive pricing and feature expansions.

GeoSurf's residential proxies, the company’s flagship service, offered over 3.5 million monthly IPs in 150+ countries and 1,700 cities. Known for reliability and robust geographic coverage, these proxies supported tasks such as social media management and ad verification. However, the service lacked SOCKS5 support, limiting its functionality for bandwidth-intensive use cases.

• IP Pool: 3.5M residential IPs
• Locations: 150+ countries, 1,700 cities
• Rotation: Per request or fixed intervals (1, 10, 30 mins)
• Traffic Plans: Starting at $300 for 25GB
• Authentication: Credentials or IP whitelisting GeoSurf’s pricing was among the highest in the market, starting at $300 for 25GB, far exceeding the entry points of competitors like Oxylabs and Bright Data, which offer plans as low as $15-$20. Features such as city targeting incurred additional costs, making GeoSurf a tough choice for cost-conscious users.

Performance tests conducted in 2023 highlighted GeoSurf’s strengths and weaknesses:

• Pool Size: GeoSurf’s 3.5M IPs couldn’t rival Bright Data’s vast network but outperformed smaller competitors like Infatica.
• Success Rate: Success rates varied significantly across regions. For instance, US-targeted proxies achieved a 96.77% success rate, while the unfiltered pool averaged a modest 57.77%.
• Response Time: GeoSurf proxies were slower than competitors, particularly in Europe. Response times ranged from 1.48 seconds (US) to over 5 seconds for global requests.

GeoSurf prioritized enterprise-level services, requiring prospective clients to contact sales for a demo or consultation before accessing its dashboard. The platform offered:

• User-Friendly Interface: A streamlined dashboard for traffic tracking, IP whitelisting, and balance management.
• Proxy Management Tools: Backconnect gateways with configurable rotation and location preferences.
• API Access: Support for IP whitelisting, traffic monitoring, and proxy retrieval by location. However, its old-school business practices—like the lack of self-service and reliance on manual configuration—felt outdated compared to modern proxy providers.

GeoSurf’s shutdown marks the end of an era for one of the market’s veteran proxy providers. While its proxies excelled in quality and location precision, the company struggled to adapt to an increasingly competitive and fast-paced industry.

The following proxy providers offer robust solutions with competitive pricing, advanced features, and seamless user experiences:

• Bright Data – Known for its massive IP pool and innovative features, it’s an excellent choice for large-scale scraping and geo-targeting.
• Oxylabs – Offers enterprise-grade services with one of the largest proxy networks, perfect for businesses of all sizes.
• MoMoProxy – A trusted provider with 80 million global residential IPs, support for HTTP(S) and SOCKS5 protocols, and high success rates for diverse use cases like social media management and web scraping.
• Smartproxy – Affordable and beginner-friendly, ideal for users new to proxy services with robust tools for automation and scraping.
• SOAX – Highly configurable proxies with granular targeting options, offering excellent value for businesses needing precise geo-targeting. By choosing the right alternative, users can seamlessly continue their proxy-based operations without disruption.