Quickstart

Proxlane is one endpoint in front of ScraperAPI, ScrapingBee, Scrapfly and Bright Data. If a provider blocks, errors or times out, Proxlane tries the next one. The response tells you what happened at every step.

Start one

docker run -p 8787:8787 \
  -e PROXLANE_API_KEY="$(openssl rand -hex 32)" \
  -e SCRAPERAPI_KEY=... \
  ghcr.io/proxlane/gateway:latest

One provider key is enough. Providers you have no key for are left out of the chain, so add a second when you want failover to have somewhere to go.

The gateway will not start without PROXLANE_API_KEY. It is the key you present to your own gateway, it registers nowhere, and without it anyone who can reach the port can spend your provider credits.

Your gateway is now on http://localhost:8787. There is no hosted endpoint to call instead.

Make a request

curl "http://localhost:8787/v1?api_key=$PROXLANE_API_KEY&url=https://example.com"

import os

import requests

res = requests.get(
    "http://localhost:8787/v1",
    params={"url": "https://example.com"},
    headers={"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['PROXLANE_API_KEY']}"},
    timeout=120,
)

print(res.headers["X-Outcome"], res.headers["X-Attempts"], "attempts")
html = res.text

const url = new URL("http://localhost:8787/v1");
url.searchParams.set("url", "https://example.com");

const res = await fetch(url, {
  headers: { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.PROXLANE_API_KEY}` },
});

console.log(res.headers.get("x-outcome"), res.headers.get("x-attempts"), "attempts");
const html = await res.text();

The body is the target's body, unchanged. The headers carry everything else:

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
X-Outcome: OK
X-Outcome-Class: ok
X-Attempts: 2
X-Provider-Used: scrapfly
X-Cost-Estimate: 0.002800
Server-Timing: gw;dur=1.7, up;dur=2451.0, total;dur=2452.7
X-Request-Id: 01JD8F2K9WQ3

Read that as: two providers were tried, the second one served the page, and it cost 0.0028 credits. Proxlane itself took 1.7 ms. The provider took the other 2.45 seconds.

Migrate an existing integration

The query shape matches ScraperAPI's, so migrating is a hostname change.

# before
curl "https://api.scraperapi.com?api_key=KEY&url=https://example.com&render=true"

# after
curl "https://your-gateway/v1?api_key=KEY&url=https://example.com&render=true"

One thing changes meaning. api_key is now the gateway's key. Your provider keys stay in the gateway's environment and are never sent by the client.

Authenticate with a header instead

curl -H "Authorization: Bearer $PROXLANE_API_KEY" \
  "https://your-gateway/v1?url=https://example.com"

headers = {"Authorization": f"Bearer {os.environ['PROXLANE_API_KEY']}"}

const headers = { Authorization: `Bearer ${process.env.PROXLANE_API_KEY}` };

Prefer this in new code. api_key in the query string works, because that is what the providers Proxlane replaces accept. But query strings end up in access logs, proxy logs, Referer headers and error trackers. None of those should hold a credential.

Next

• API reference for every parameter and header.
• Outcomes for what each result means and whether you should retry.
• Self-hosting for Compose, VPS and reverse-proxy setups.

If something looks wrong, run npx proxlane doctor. It prints what it checked and what it found, so the output is worth pasting into an issue.