What Thordata is: a web-data platform
Thordata is best understood as a web-data platform rather than a proxy vendor. The proxy lineup is only one layer: alongside rotating residential, static ISP, datacenter and mobile IPs it sells a SERP API, a general web scraper API, an anti-bot unlocker and a hosted scraping browser, and more recently prebuilt datasets — including large video datasets aimed at AI training workloads. Very few providers cover that much surface area.
That breadth is the point. If your team's problem is "we need Google results parsed" or "we need this marketplace's catalogue as rows", Thordata can answer it without you writing a parser or maintaining a headless browser fleet. Buying the proxy and the extraction logic from the same vendor removes a whole class of integration work.
It is also a self-serve product rather than an enterprise sales motion. Signup is direct, documentation carries code samples across the usual languages, billing is pay-as-you-go per gigabyte with no mandatory contract, and the entry package is small. You do not need to talk to anyone to start.
Where Thordata and Nefo diverge
Nefo is still narrower in the layers above the proxies. It sells residential proxies and mobile 4G/5G ports, and it also offers datacenter proxies, static IP products, static residential ISP IPs in 24 countries and IP Vault — but no SERP API, no managed scrapers, no unlocker, no datasets. If you are paying Thordata mainly for those layers, Nefo does not replace them and this page will not pretend otherwise.
The differences that matter are structural rather than competitive. Session length is one: Thordata's documented sticky window on residential is measured in minutes, which is fine for a checkout path but awkward for long authenticated sessions. Nefo holds a sticky IP from one minute up to 24 hours, set per credential.
Billing shape is another. Both are pay-as-you-go per gigabyte on residential, but Thordata's headline per-GB figure is typically a promotional rate and the effective rate depends heavily on the volume tier you commit to — worth checking against the tier you would realistically buy rather than the banner. Nefo's flexible bandwidth is non-expiring: it sits in the account until traffic consumes it, which suits irregular or seasonal workloads where a monthly reset would waste what you paid for.
How Nefo prepaid proxies work
The mechanics are simple enough to describe in full. You buy prepaid bandwidth, generate credentials in the dashboard, and only traffic through those credentials draws down the balance. Generating credentials costs nothing, so you can create a separate credential per project, per target site or per team member without thinking about it.
Everything is expressed in the credential itself — protocol, country, session behaviour — so routing changes are a configuration change rather than a code change.
- HTTP, HTTPS and SOCKS5, all on username/password authentication
- 227 countries and territories; United States targetable down to state and city
- ASN/ISP targeting — pin traffic to a specific carrier or network operator within a country
- Rotating sessions (new IP per request) or sticky sessions from 1 minute to 24 hours
- Prepaid from 5GB, topped up at any time, with flexible plans non-expiring
- Free credential generation; usage tracked in the dashboard
Mobile proxies: per GB vs per port
This is the least obvious difference and often the most consequential. Thordata bills mobile IPs per gigabyte, in the same shape as its residential product. Nefo rents mobile as a port on a real carrier modem for a period of time — hours up to 30 days — with one live rotating 4G/5G IP on that port, which you can keep or change on demand, with US state- and carrier-level targeting.
The practical effect is on predictability. Per-GB mobile makes cost a function of how heavy your pages are, which is hard to forecast for anything involving media or app traffic. Per-port makes cost a function of calendar time, and the IP stays on the port until you change it rather than being drawn from a shared rotation. If your mobile use is light and bursty, per-GB is likely cheaper; if it is continuous or bandwidth-heavy, per-port removes the variance.
How to switch from Thordata to Nefo
Residential proxy endpoints are standardised enough that migration is mostly credentials and configuration. Both providers use username/password authentication over HTTP, HTTPS or SOCKS5, so the change is host, port and credential — not a rewrite. The part that needs attention is anywhere your code encodes targeting or session behaviour into the username string, because that syntax is provider-specific.
A cautious migration is worth an afternoon rather than a sprint. Buy a small amount of bandwidth, run one representative job end to end, and compare success rate and latency against your Thordata baseline on the same targets before moving anything else.
- Inventory which Thordata products you use — if SERP or scraper APIs are in there, plan to keep or replace them separately
- Rewrite any targeting encoded in the proxy username to Nefo's syntax
- Map your sticky-session assumptions; windows that were capped in minutes can now run far longer
- Re-test the specific sites you care about — pool composition differs between providers and per-site behaviour is the only meaningful benchmark
- Keep the Thordata account funded until the new path is proven, then wind it down
When to stay with Thordata
Stay if you use the platform, not just the pipe. Teams relying on the SERP API, the web scraper API, the unlocker or the scraping browser are buying maintained extraction logic, and moving to a raw proxy network means rebuilding that in-house. The same applies to anyone consuming Thordata's prebuilt or video datasets — there is no equivalent here.
Stay, too, if you need products Nefo still does not sell. Nefo sells static ISP IPs in 24 countries, so check that your countries are covered, and if your workflow depends on a managed scraping API, unlocker, hosted browser or dataset product, that is a real reason to remain.
Nefo is the better fit in the narrower case: you want residential or mobile IPs, you want long sticky sessions, ASN-level targeting and SOCKS5, you want bandwidth that does not expire between busy periods, and you would rather buy a small amount and test than commit to a volume tier. Neither product is better across the board — they are answering different questions.
Frequently asked questions
It depends on the volume tier you compare. Both sell pay-as-you-go residential per gigabyte with rates falling as volume rises, and Thordata's advertised entry rate is usually promotional. Nefo runs from $0.90/GB at 5 GB to $0.53/GB at 10 TB, and unused bandwidth never expires. Compare the tier you would actually buy. See pricing.
On Nefo, no: bandwidth stays on your balance until traffic uses it. Thordata does not prominently document a non-expiry guarantee, so if that matters to your workload, confirm it with them directly before comparing rates.
Yes, and you may need to. Nefo does not sell managed scraping APIs, an unlocker, a hosted browser or datasets; it sells the proxy network only. Running both is a legitimate outcome: Thordata for extraction, Nefo for raw residential and mobile traffic.
Up to 24 hours on Nefo, chosen per proxy line from 1 minute upward. Thordata's documented sticky window on residential is considerably shorter, measured in minutes. For logins, multi-step forms or anything that breaks when the exit IP moves, this is usually the most relevant difference. See sticky session proxies.
Usually only the connection details. Both use username/password authentication over HTTP, HTTPS or SOCKS5, and Nefo also accepts an IP allowlist. If your code builds proxy usernames to select country, city or session, rewrite that to Nefo's tokens, such as -country-us and -session-<id>. Request logic and parsing stay untouched.
No. Thordata bills mobile per gigabyte. Nefo rents a dedicated 4G/5G port by duration, from $30 per 30 days on the Economy plan, and also sells metered mobile proxies from $3.90/GB. Light, bursty use favors per-GB; continuous or heavy use favors a port.