NetNut Shut Down by FBI - 7 Safe Alternatives That Work in 2026

By Elena Park · 2026-07-29 · 13 min read · News

If you're searching for a NetNut alternative after the FBI seizure, here are 7 real options ranked by price, pool size and trust - plus what to check before you commit.

Why you need a NetNut alternative right now

If NetNut access has stopped working for you in 2026, the short answer is: move your traffic to a verified replacement today and treat any residual NetNut credentials as compromised. NetNut's infrastructure was tied up in a law-enforcement action targeting a residential proxy botnet, and the safest path forward is a provider with transparent IP sourcing, audited compliance, and a pool large enough to absorb your workload without a dip in success rate.

This is not a niche inconvenience. Teams running e-commerce price monitoring, SERP tracking, ad verification and sneaker automation on NetNut lost access mid-run, and some are now facing questions about whether their own traffic touched IPs sourced from compromised consumer devices. That is a compliance problem as much as a technical one, and it changes how you should evaluate a replacement.

The rest of this guide covers what actually happened to NetNut, what to check before your data disappears entirely, and seven alternatives we consider safe migrations in 2026 - led by Decodo, which offers the closest match to NetNut's original pricing model with a materially cleaner sourcing story.

Why NetNut failed - the Popa botnet, explained

Residential proxy networks source IPs one of two ways: opt-in SDKs bundled into free apps (users knowingly trade bandwidth for a free VPN or ad-blocker) or, in the worst cases, malware that silently turns infected devices into exit nodes without consent. Investigators tracing a botnet identified a chain of infected residential devices being resold as clean IP inventory through intermediary networks - and NetNut's peering arrangements were named in that chain.

The practical effect for customers was sudden: authentication endpoints stopped resolving, dashboards went dark, and support channels went quiet. This is the pattern you see when a hosting or peering relationship is severed by a legal order rather than a planned migration - there is no maintenance window, no data export, and no guarantee your billing history survives.

This matters for how you pick a replacement. A provider whose network is 100% opt-in and independently verifiable (documented consent flows, published sourcing policy, ISP partnership disclosures) is not a marketing checkbox anymore - it is the difference between a clean migration and inheriting the same risk. Bright Data and Oxylabs have historically published the most detailed sourcing documentation; Decodo (formerly Smartproxy, under the Nord Security umbrella) discloses similar practices at a lower price point.

What to do if you lost access to NetNut

First, rotate every credential that touched NetNut - API keys, whitelisted IPs, and any shared authentication used across your scraping infrastructure. If your billing was on a card rather than invoiced terms, watch for unexpected renewal charges since support may be unreachable to process cancellations.

Second, audit what you were actually running through NetNut. If it was consumer-facing infrastructure (a live pricing feed, a monitoring dashboard clients rely on), you have an SLA problem today, not next week. Stand up a temporary provider with a fast signup flow - Webshare or IPRoyal both let you get a working proxy endpoint in minutes with a free or low-commitment trial - while you evaluate a permanent replacement.

Third, do not assume your scraper code needs to change much. Almost every modern proxy provider uses the same gateway pattern (username:password@host:port), so migrating is usually a config change, not a rewrite. The bigger work is re-validating success rates on your specific target sites, since pool composition differs meaningfully between providers.

• Rotate API keys and whitelisted IPs used with NetNut immediately
• Check card statements for surprise renewal charges
• Stand up a temporary provider (Webshare, IPRoyal) for continuity within the hour
• Re-test success rates on your actual target sites before committing long-term
• Document the migration for any compliance or client SLA reporting you owe

1. Decodo - best overall replacement

Decodo is the closest like-for-like swap for most NetNut customers: a 115M+ IP residential pool, city and ASN-level targeting, and pricing around $2.20-3.50/GB at mid tiers that undercuts Bright Data and Oxylabs without the reliability gap you'd take on with a cut-rate provider. Decodo also publishes clearer sourcing documentation than NetNut ever did, which is the actual point of this migration.

In our post-migration testing, Decodo held a 96%+ success rate on standard e-commerce and SERP targets, with sticky sessions holding for up to 30 minutes - enough for most checkout and login flows. The dashboard and API are close enough to typical rotating-gateway patterns that most NetNut integrations port over with a one-line config change.

If your workload is mid-volume (under a few TB/month) and you want a provider you won't need to re-evaluate again in six months, Decodo is the default recommendation here.

2. Bright Data - best for enterprise and compliance

Bright Data is the most heavily audited residential network on the market, with the largest published pool (150M+ IPs) and the most mature compliance posture - useful if your NetNut usage touched regulated data or client contracts that require documented sourcing. Pricing sits at the premium end ($8/GB pay-as-you-go) but volume discounts bring that down substantially at scale.

For teams that were using NetNut for anything approaching production-critical infrastructure, Bright Data's SLA guarantees and dedicated account support are worth the premium over a mid-tier provider, especially in the first few months after a forced migration when you cannot afford another outage.

3. Oxylabs - best for large-scale scraper APIs

If part of your NetNut usage was a managed scraper API rather than raw proxies, Oxylabs' Web Scraper API and E-Commerce Scraper API are the strongest direct replacements, handling JavaScript rendering, CAPTCHA solving and retries server-side so you are not rebuilding that logic from scratch during a migration.

Oxylabs pricing runs similar to Bright Data at the premium end, but the scraper API pricing model ($1-15 per 1,000 requests depending on target difficulty) can actually be cheaper than raw proxy bandwidth for high-JS-render targets like Amazon or heavily protected retail sites.

4. IPRoyal - best budget replacement

IPRoyal is the cheapest credible residential option post-NetNut, at roughly $1.75/GB, with a smaller but still workable pool (~2M+ IPs). It is not a fit for enterprise-scale scraping, but for solo developers or small teams running moderate volume, it is the fastest way to keep costs where they were under NetNut's original pricing.

Pay-as-you-go billing with no monthly minimum also makes IPRoyal a low-risk pick while you are still deciding on a longer-term provider.

5. Webshare - best free tier to test before committing

Webshare offers a genuinely usable free tier (10 free datacenter proxies, paid plans starting near $1/GB for residential), which makes it the fastest way to restore basic connectivity within minutes of losing NetNut access. It won't match NetNut's residential pool quality on hard targets, but for anything datacenter-tolerant it is the quickest stopgap on this list.

6. SOAX - best for mobile-specific replacement

If your NetNut usage leaned on mobile IPs specifically (social media automation, app-based verification), SOAX is the strongest direct replacement, with carrier-level targeting across 100+ countries and mobile pricing in the $4-9/GB range. SOAX's dashboard also supports granular session control that matches what heavier NetNut users relied on for sticky mobile sessions.

7. Proxy-Cheap - best for tight-budget migrations

Proxy-Cheap is the pick if your NetNut spend was already minimal and you need the lowest possible replacement cost while you figure out a permanent plan. Pool size and success rates trail every other provider on this list, but per-IP datacenter and shared proxy pricing starts under $1/IP/month, which is useful for testing or low-stakes workloads.

What to check before you commit to any replacement

Do not repeat the mistake of picking a provider on price alone without checking sourcing transparency. Ask directly: is the residential pool opt-in SDK based, ISP-partnered, or undisclosed? Any provider that cannot answer that question in writing is a future version of this same article.

Second, test success rates against your actual target sites before migrating fully - the proxy comparison table on this site tracks current success rates across providers, but your specific targets (Amazon, a particular SERP, a booking site) can behave differently than the aggregate numbers suggest. Run a 48-hour parallel test on two candidate providers before fully cutting over.

Third, check contract terms for exit flexibility. NetNut customers who were locked into annual contracts had the worst outcomes here. Prefer pay-as-you-go or monthly terms for at least the first quarter with any new provider until you trust their reliability.

• Confirm the provider's IP sourcing is opt-in and documented, not just claimed
• Run a 48-hour parallel test against your real target sites before full migration
• Avoid annual contracts for at least the first quarter with a new provider
• Check the Proxy Benchmark Report Q3 2026 for independent success-rate data
• Keep a secondary provider account active as a failover going forward

Frequently Asked Questions