The Case Against Bundled Proxy Platforms
All-in-one platforms appeal to teams that want to minimize vendor relationships. Buy one subscription, get crawling, scraping, proxies, and data extraction. But this bundling creates compromises that become expensive as operations scale.
Jack of All Trades, Master of None
Crawlbase combines multiple products into a single platform: a crawling API, a scraping tool, proxy infrastructure, and data enrichment services. Each feature competes for engineering resources and product focus. The result is that no single feature matches what a specialized provider delivers.
For proxy infrastructure specifically, this means:
- Smaller IP pools: Bundled platforms invest across multiple products rather than concentrating on IP pool size and quality.
- Limited session control: Proxy configuration is simplified for the crawling API, reducing options for advanced users.
- Opaque infrastructure: The proxy layer is an implementation detail of the crawling API, not a first-class product with dedicated optimization.
Specialized Proxy Infrastructure: The Performance Advantage
Hex Proxies dedicates its entire infrastructure to proxy delivery. This specialization means every engineering decision optimizes for IP quality, session management, and connection performance. The results are measurable:
- Larger IP pools: 10M+ residential and 250K+ ISP proxies, maintained and monitored continuously.
- Owned ISP hardware: Hex's dedicated US ISP proxies run on owned hardware for consistent performance.
- Granular controls: Full session, rotation, and targeting configuration through dashboard and API.
- Transparent billing: Per-GB pricing you can predict, not credits that obscure true costs.
Building a Best-in-Class Stack
The modern approach to web data collection separates concerns. Use the best proxy infrastructure you can find (Hex Proxies), pair it with the best scraping framework for your language (Scrapy, Playwright, Puppeteer), and deploy on the compute platform that matches your scale requirements. Each layer is independently optimized and replaceable without affecting the others.
This composable approach outperforms bundled platforms at every scale level. You pay only for the capabilities you actually use, and you can upgrade each layer independently as better options emerge.
Hex Proxies in Your Stack
Hex Proxies slots into any crawling stack as the proxy layer. Configure your scraping framework to route through Hex Proxies endpoints, set rotation and session parameters, and let the 10M+ IP pool handle the rest. The dashboard monitors your proxy performance in real-time, and the pay-as-you-go model means your proxy costs scale linearly with your data collection volume.