Decodo
ThordataThordata vs Smartproxy (Decodo): Which Proxy Network Wins in 2026?
Quick Verdict
Choose Decodo if...
Best for engineering teams who want production-grade scraping with the lowest operational overhead and don't mind paying a premium for polish.
Choose Thordata if...
Best for high-volume scrapers, AI training data collection, and budget-sensitive teams willing to trade some polish for substantially lower bandwidth costs.
If you're scraping the web at any meaningful scale in 2026, the proxy network you choose will quietly decide whether your pipeline ships clean data or spends half its life on CAPTCHA pages. Thordata and Smartproxy (now rebranded as Decodo) sit in the same price bracket and target the same buyer — the developer or growth-stage data team that has outgrown free proxies but isn't ready to sign an enterprise contract with Bright Data or Oxylabs.
On paper they look almost identical. Both advertise 100M+ residential IPs, both sell per-GB bandwidth, both throw in a scraper API, and both promise 99.9% uptime. The differences only surface once you actually point them at hard targets like Amazon, LinkedIn, or Google SERPs and watch the success rates and bills drift apart.
We've spent time with both networks and combed through real user reports across the web scraping and proxy category. The short version: Thordata is the aggressive challenger — cheaper per gigabyte, with a unique unlimited-bandwidth plan that's genuinely interesting for AI training data collection. Smartproxy/Decodo is the more polished, more battle-tested option — better dashboard, better support, smoother onboarding, and a track record that goes back to 2018.
This guide breaks down how Thordata and Decodo actually compare on the things that matter: IP pool quality, pricing transparency, scraper API capability, ease of use, and which one you should pick based on your stack. If you're still weighing more options, we also maintain a list of Thordata alternatives and a deeper Thordata vs Bright Data breakdown.
Feature Comparison
| Feature | Decodo | Thordata |
|---|---|---|
| Residential Proxies | ||
| Site Unblocker | ||
| E-Commerce Scraping API | ||
| Sticky Sessions | ||
| Self-Serve Dashboard | ||
| ISP Proxies | ||
| Datacenter Proxies | ||
| Mobile Proxies | ||
| Unlimited Proxy Plan | ||
| Web Scraper API | ||
| Dataset Marketplace | ||
| Chrome Proxy Manager | ||
| Global Coverage |
Pricing Comparison
| Pricing | Decodo | Thordata |
|---|---|---|
| Free Plan | ||
| Starting Price | $3/GB | $0.65/GB |
| Total Plans | 4 | 4 |
Decodo- No commitment
- 115M+ IPs
- 195+ locations
- 25GB included (~$3/GB)
- All geo-targeting
- Sub-users
- 200GB included (~$2/GB)
- Priority support
- Higher concurrency
- Volume pricing under $2/GB
- Dedicated manager
- Custom SLA
Thordata- 60M+ residential IPs
- 190 countries coverage
- Sticky or rotating sessions
- City & ASN-level targeting
- Pay-as-you-go billing
- Static dedicated IPs
- Long-term sessions
- Consistent identity
- ISP-level targeting
- Real mobile carrier IPs
- Mobile-specific targeting
- Rotating sessions
- Global coverage
- Unrestricted bandwidth
- Unlimited concurrent threads
- Up to 20 Mb/s per IP
- Ideal for high-volume scraping
- AI data collection optimized
Detailed Review
Decodo
Formerly SmartProxy - affordable residential proxies with a developer-friendly dashboard
Smartproxy — rebranded to Decodo in 2024 — is the more mature half of this comparison. With 115M+ residential IPs across 195+ locations and a network history going back to 2018, it has the deepest real-world track record of the two. The big differentiator versus Thordata isn't the IP pool (both are massive); it's the operational layer wrapped around it.
Decodo ships purpose-built scraping APIs for Amazon, Google SERPs, and social platforms that return structured JSON, which removes most of the parsing and anti-bot work from your codebase. The self-serve dashboard is genuinely the cleanest in this price tier — clear traffic graphs, granular sub-user creation, and per-target success-rate reporting. The Site Unblocker handles JavaScript rendering and CAPTCHAs as a single endpoint, comparable to Thordata's scraper API but with noticeably better documentation.
Where Decodo trades off is price: $3/GB on pay-as-you-go versus Thordata's $0.65/GB starting rate. For most production teams that's a fair trade — you're paying for less time spent debugging proxy issues and more time shipping product. It's the default choice for engineering teams who'd rather treat proxies as boring infrastructure than as a science project.
Pros
- Pre-built scraper APIs for Amazon, Google, and social platforms return structured JSON out of the box
- Dashboard is the cleanest in this price tier — granular sub-users, real-time traffic, per-target success rates
- 115M+ IPs across 195+ locations with mature city-level geo-targeting
- Established since 2018 with strong documentation, active community, and responsive support
- Site Unblocker handles JavaScript rendering and CAPTCHAs through a single endpoint
Cons
- Pay-as-you-go pricing of $3/GB is roughly 4x Thordata's starting per-GB rate
- No unlimited-bandwidth plan, so heavy AI data collection workloads get expensive quickly
- Recent rebrand from Smartproxy to Decodo created some short-term confusion around documentation and existing tutorials
Thordata is the aggressive challenger in the mid-market proxy space. Founded in 2022, it offers 100M+ residential IPs across 190 countries alongside ISP, datacenter, and mobile proxy types — but the real story is pricing. Residential bandwidth starts at $0.65/GB (vs Decodo's $3/GB), ISP proxies at $0.75/IP, and most distinctively, an unlimited-bandwidth daily plan at $69/day with no GB cap and up to 20 Mb/s per IP.
That unlimited SKU is genuinely unusual at this price point and is why Thordata gets recommended for AI training data collection, large historical scrapes, and any workload where per-GB pricing would otherwise spiral. Stress tests have reported up to 83% reduction in CAPTCHA triggers, and the built-in Web Scraper API handles JavaScript rendering and fingerprint spoofing similar to Decodo's Site Unblocker.
Where Thordata is still catching up is the operational layer. The dashboard is functional but less refined than Decodo's. Customer support quality is hit-or-miss based on user reports, and the company doesn't yet have the same depth of community tutorials or ecosystem integrations. As a younger vendor (2022) without a decade-long track record, it's the higher-variance pick — but for teams where bandwidth cost is the dominant variable, the math is hard to argue with.
Pros
- Residential proxies at $0.65/GB — roughly a quarter of Decodo's pay-as-you-go pricing
- Unique $69/day unlimited-bandwidth plan with no GB cap, ideal for AI training data and large historical scrapes
- Granular geo-targeting down to country, state, city, and ASN level on every plan
- Reported 83% reduction in CAPTCHA triggers in stress tests with the Web Scraper API
- Free 1GB residential trial plus a dataset marketplace with pre-collected data from 100+ domains
Cons
- Customer support quality is inconsistent according to user reports — slower response than Decodo on edge cases
- Younger company (founded 2022) with less mature documentation, ecosystem, and community vs Decodo's 2018 heritage
- No dedicated structured-output APIs for Amazon or Google SERPs — you build the parsing layer yourself
Our Conclusion
The honest verdict: Smartproxy/Decodo wins on polish, Thordata wins on price and raw flexibility.
Choose Decodo if you want the lowest-friction path from signup to first successful request. The dashboard is genuinely the cleanest in this price tier, the documentation is mature, support actually answers tickets, and the ready-made scraping APIs for Amazon, Google, and social platforms remove a lot of busywork. It's the safer pick for teams where engineer time costs more than proxy bandwidth — which is most teams.
Choose Thordata if cost-per-gigabyte is the metric your finance team watches, or if your workload actually benefits from the unlimited-bandwidth daily plan ($69/day with no GB cap). For AI training data collection, large historical scrapes, or any project where you'd otherwise burn through hundreds of gigabytes a month, that single SKU can cut your bill by an order of magnitude. Just go in knowing the support and tooling polish aren't quite at Decodo's level yet.
Quick decision guide:
- Building a production scraper on a small team: Decodo
- Scraping millions of pages for an LLM dataset: Thordata's unlimited plan
- Need an Amazon/Google SERP API out of the box: Decodo
- Geo-targeting at city or ASN level on a tight budget: Thordata
- Want the most established vendor with the deepest community: Decodo
Whichever way you go, both networks offer free trials — start with 1GB on each, point them at your actual target sites, and let the success rate make the decision for you. For broader context on this space, see our best web scraping proxies guide and our Decodo alternatives comparison.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Smartproxy the same as Decodo?
Yes. Smartproxy rebranded to Decodo in 2024. The underlying network, IP pool, and infrastructure are unchanged — only the brand name and dashboard styling were updated. Existing API endpoints and customer accounts continued to work through the transition.
Which is cheaper, Thordata or Smartproxy?
Thordata is cheaper on raw per-GB residential pricing ($0.65/GB starting vs Decodo's $3/GB pay-as-you-go or ~$2.50/GB on the Starter plan). Thordata's unlimited daily plan at $69/day is also unique in this price bracket. Decodo's higher base price reflects its more mature platform, support, and pre-built scraper APIs.
Does Thordata have a scraper API like Smartproxy?
Yes. Thordata's Web Scraper API handles JavaScript rendering, CAPTCHA solving, and fingerprint spoofing, similar to Decodo's Site Unblocker. Decodo additionally ships dedicated scraper APIs for Amazon, Google SERPs, and social platforms with structured JSON output, while Thordata's approach is more of a general-purpose unblocking endpoint.
Which provider has better IP coverage?
Both claim around 100M+ residential IPs. Decodo advertises 115M+ across 195+ locations; Thordata advertises 100M+ across 190 countries. In practice the difference is negligible — what matters more is success rate on your specific target sites, which varies by country and by week.
Which is better for AI training data collection?
Thordata, mainly because of the $69/day unlimited-bandwidth plan. If you're scraping hundreds of gigabytes for an LLM dataset, paying per GB on Decodo gets expensive fast. Decodo wins if your AI workflow involves a lot of structured product or SERP data where the dedicated scraper APIs do the heavy lifting.
Do both offer free trials?
Yes. Thordata offers 1GB of free residential proxies for new users. Decodo offers a 3-day free trial on residential proxies and a 7-day money-back guarantee on most plans, so you can validate success rates on your actual target sites before committing.