Residential vs ISP Proxies: Complete Comparison

What is the difference between residential proxies and static residential proxies? Are ISP proxies and static residential proxies the same thing? What are the key elements to consider in the residential proxies vs ISP proxies comparison? Even experienced proxy users may not be able to answer all these questions. Fortunately, you have landed in the right place!

Residential Proxies

Learn what residential proxies are, how they work, what their strengths and weaknesses are, and in which scenarios they are most successful.

Definition

Residential proxies provide IP addresses managed by ISPs (Internet Service Providers) and associated with real residential devices. In detail, residential proxy servers are computers, smartphones, and other Internet-connected devices in homes.

There are several ways in which providers manage to source these proxies. What usually happens is that users voluntarily share their residential Internet connections with others in exchange for some benefit or incentive.

When routing traffic through a residential device that acts as a proxy server, the following occurs:

1. The client sent its web requests for a specific destination to the proxy server.
2. The residential device forwards the requests to the actual destination server.
3. The destination server sends the responses back to the residential device.
4. The residential device forwards the responses back to the client.

The main advantage of using residential devices as proxy servers is that they are connected to local Wi-Fi networks. In other words, they provide authentic IPs registered by ISPs. That means they are much harder to detect by anti-bot solutions than other proxies.

Pros

• Automatic IP rotation: Residential IP proxies rely on temporary connections. Being real residential devices, they are not always turned on like servers in datacenters. The residential devices that you can access at any time are constantly changing. Thus, when you connect to a residential proxy network, you always get different IPs. Providers also offer advanced IP rotation configuration to help you define when and how often to change your exit IP.
• Vast selection of IPs: Proxy networks offered by the best residential proxy providers usually involve millions of different IP addresses. The reason is that there are billions of residential devices in the world and a portion of them share their IP for proxy routing. The consequence is that you will hardly get the same IP twice.
• Global coverage: Sourcing residential proxy servers is not difficult. Because of that, providers can guarantee a large number of locations, countries, states, and even ZIP codes to choose proxies from. This allows users to geo-locate to most countries and access geo-restricted content and services.
• High diversity: Residential proxies rarely share the same subnet, minimizing the risk of mass IP blocking by advanced anti-bot systems. This diversity also enhances anonymity and reduces the likelihood of detection.
• Hard to Block: Residential proxy IPs come from real devices. By connecting to them, you are essentially mimicking the behavior of a regular Internet user. This makes them difficult for websites to detect and block, which leads to reduced restrictions and IP bans when performing tasks like web scraping.

Cons

• Unstable connections: Because of the way they work and are sourced, residential proxies are inherently prone to connection instability issues. End users can disconnect their residential devices at any moment, leading to interruptions in service or changes in IP addresses. Providers try to tackle this problem with features such as sticky sessions to receive the same IP for a given timespan, but this is not always a solution.
• Slow speed: Residential proxies tend to be slower than datacenter proxies or ISP proxies. That is because local Internet connections are not as fast as those of a server farm. In addition, residential devices tend to share only a portion of their entire bandwidth. This leads to high response times and a slower browsing experience.
• Only shared IPs: Residential proxy providers typically offer access to a pool of shared proxies. Multiple users share the same residential IPs with others at a given time. This can lead to potential IP address conflicts or limitations regarding proxy reliability.

Best For

• Scraping sites with anti-bot mechanisms: Most sites protect their pages with rate-limiting and IP-banning technologies. The idea is to prevent bots from making too many requests. Routing traffic through residential proxies gives you different exit IPs, bypassing those measures. Also, these IPs are reliable and hard to detect. The combination of these two aspects makes residential proxies ideal for scraping sites with anti-bot solutions.
• Accessing geo-restricted or location-sensitive content: Residential proxy providers offer the option of choosing servers in specific areas of the world. This gives you to access content dedicated to different regions from your home, as is the case with streaming services.

Popular Use Cases

• Ad verification: Check and monitor online ads to make sure they are appearing correctly to the intended audience. Verify that they are not displayed incorrectly or fraudulently.
• Public market research: Gather insights on consumer behavior, pricing strategies, product availability, and trends by accessing public data from diverse geographic locations.
• SEO monitoring: Track search engine rankings, analyze SERP features, and monitor SEO performance across different regions.
• Price comparison: Retrieve and aggregate pricing data from several e-commerce platforms to conduct competitive analysis and study pricing strategies.
• Sneaker copping: Automate the purchase process for limited-edition sneakers from online retailers by bypassing restrictions and queue systems.

ISP Proxies

Learn what ISP proxies are, how they work, what their pros and cons are, and in which use cases they shine.

Definition

ISP proxies, also known as Internet Service Provider proxies or static residential proxies, are proxy servers equipped with IP addresses provided by ISPs. These proxies route users’ Internet traffic through servers hosted in datacenters and connected directly to an ISP’s network.

Although they are datacenter servers, they manage to appear as authentic residential IPs to the destination servers because their IP addresses come from an ISP. As such, ISP proxies aim to portray the best of both residential proxies and datacenter proxies.

In essence, ISP proxies are datacenter IP addresses associated with an ASN number connected to an ISP. While they are not hosted on individual devices, they offer the speed advantages of datacenter servers with the anonymity typically associated with residential proxies.

Pros

• Static IPs with rotation options: ISP proxy servers provide static, stable IPs you can use to perform tasks that require a session. The best ISP proxy providers also offer the ability to rotate the exit IP, giving you access to different ISP IPs in a given area.
• High uptime: ISP proxies ensure stable and long-lasting connections, similar to datacenter servers. Since they do not rely on potentially unreliable end-user connections, they are constantly available on demand.
• High speed: Internet networks in datacenters are generally high-level and quite fast. As a result, ISP proxies ensure fast responses.
• Higher anonymity than datacenter proxies: ISP IPs are owned by ISPs, which gives them a better reputation in the eyes of web servers. This greater legitimacy makes ISP proxies harder for anti-bot systems to detect, reducing the risk of getting blocked.
• Unlimited bandwidth: ISP proxy providers typically have plans for private servers with unlimited bandwidth. That enables users to carry out data-intensive activities without worrying about traffic limits from a dedicated IP.

Cons

• Small number of IPs: Sourcing residential static proxies is not easy, as large ISP providers usually do not want to back datacenter servers. As a result, most ISP proxies are registered with small, regional, and lesser-known ISPs that do not control many IPs. Their scarcity also makes them more expensive than datacenter and residential proxies.
• Limited geographic coverage: Precisely because obtaining proxy ISPs is difficult, you cannot expect the same geographic coverage offered by residential proxy servers. ISPs will struggle to get ISP IPs in most countries or regions, resulting in small proxy networks.
• Limited subnet diversity: ISP proxies inherit the organizational structure of data center IPs, which means they have low subnet diversity. This lack of diversity increases the risk of subnet bans for mass IP blocking. This can also lead to identification concerns, with IP databases classifying ISP IPs as datacenter IPs, compromising their anonymity goals.

Best For

• Traffic-intensive tasks: Purchase exclusive access to ISP proxy servers. Scrape large volumes of data from sites without rate-limiting measures without worrying about exceeding bandwidth limits or incurring additional charges.
• Identity-based and session-based activities: Use ISP IPs to perform tasks that require a static IP associated with a specific account or session. Ensure separation and isolation of online activities and reduce the risk of accounts being linked to other identities or reported as a bot.

Popular Use Cases

• Multiple account management: Stable IPs provided by ISP proxies allow you to bypass account restrictions on social media platforms and e-commerce sites. This helps you control multiple social and merchant accounts related to different geographical locations from the same place without encountering issues.
• Isolated market research: Market research conducted through ISPs ensures the isolation of each research session, preventing data contamination and preserving the integrity of the results.
• Isolated SEO monitoring: Maintain separate sessions for each SERP monitoring activity to collect accurate and unbiased data, facilitating SEO strategies and informed decision making.

Differences Between Residential Proxies and ISP Proxies

The differences between residential proxies and ISP proxies lie in their rotation method, sourcing, anonymity, location coverage, stability, speed, and pricing. While residential proxies provide rotating IPs ideal for scraping activities, ISP proxies offer static residential IPs ideal for session-based tasks.

Residential proxies—sourced from real people’s devices connected to local ISP-powered networks—offer great anonymity and large location coverage. Instead, ISP proxies—sourced from ISP-backed datacenter servers—excel when it comes to stability and speed.

Residential proxies tend to be cheaper than ISP proxies, but they are slower. For a complete comparison, refer to the residential proxies vs ISP proxies summary table below:

Final Thoughts

In this comparison article, you understood the differences between residential proxies and ISP proxies. While both provide ISP-supported IPs, residential proxies use real devices in homes as proxy servers, while ISP proxies offer static IPs from servers in datacenter farms. Here, you saw the strengths, weaknesses, and use cases of both types of proxies. Choosing between residential proxies and ISP proxies is now easier!