Proxy Network Benchmarks Reveal Gaps Between Marketing and Production

A team benchmarked three major proxy providers—Oxylabs, Bright Data, and SmartProxy—on real-world performance metrics like TTFB and success rates. Oxylabs averaged 240ms TTFB with 91.4% success, while SmartProxy lagged at 380ms and 84.7%. The audit highlights that server uptime often masks poor request success rates due to WAF blocks and peer churn.