ISP vs. residential proxies: Both are two of the most used types of proxies these days. Each has unique features, its pros and cons, suitable for different use cases.

This article will provide you with the necessary information needed to differentiate between ISP and residential proxies and to choose whether ISP or residential proxies are needed for your specific needs.

What are ISP and Residential Proxies

ISP and residential proxies are both very popular types of proxies, but they can’t replace each other. Understanding their difference is very important if anyone wants to use the proxies to their full potential. Let’s go deeper into the details of these proxies.

What is an ISP Proxy?

Internet Service Provider (ISP) proxies are a combination of data center and residential proxies. ISP proxies are a data center IP with an ASN number connected to internet service providers like Spectrum or Xfinity that provide access to the internet. Although datacenter server hosts them instead of daily-use devices, the target servers still identify them as residential proxies.

In simple words, these are proxies with the speed of data center IPs and the anonymity of residential IPs. 

What is an ISP Proxy used for?

ISP proxies are useful when a user uses an application that prioritizes speed and volume but doesn’t need advanced levels of anonymity. Due to their static nature, ISP proxies are ideal for activities that require constant traffic. 

The uses of ISP Proxies are:

Web Scraping

ISP proxies can be used in the scraping of large amounts of data from websites with a normal or low speed. Since the IPs are from real devices and run on a data center server, they make web scraping easy and fast. 

If you want to know more about web scraping, check out our guide “What is Web Scraping” to get detailed knowledge.

Geo-Restricted Content

Since ISP proxies are taken as residential proxies, they can use IPS from different countries’ servers. Hence, they can bypass geo-restricted content and websites and access them for you.

Simple Ad Verification

ISP proxies’ speed and geo-restrictions bypassing allows businesses and users to see their ad from different locations to confirm their ad quality, detect any errors, and ensure that it is running on every social media across the targeted countries. Proxying helps businesses to achieve this by providing reliable ISP proxies that make ad verification across different countries effective and fast.

E-Commerce Monitoring

In e-commerce, businesses need to constantly monitor competitor websites for pricing changes, product availability, and unlock restricted marketplaces. ISP proxies can help you collect this data without being flagged as bots. Proxying offers ISP proxies that help businesses in monitoring e-commerce websites.

What are the Advantages and Disadvantages of ISP Proxies?

Like other proxies, ISP proxies have both advantages and disadvantages. Let’s go through some of the advantages and disadvantages ISP proxies offer:

Advantages

• High speed and response time: ISP proxies offer very fast speed, uptime, and response time as they are hosted on data center servers and have very high bandwidth.
• Human-like behavior: They are less liked to be blocked compared to both residential and data center proxies, as they appear as organic traffic to the website because these are IPs from an internet service provider. So, the target website will take you as an authentic user and is less likely to block you.
• Long and steady sessions: One ability of ISP proxies is to maintain long and stable sessions. Unlike other types of proxies, which often get flagged or disconnected during long scraping sessions. ISP proxies use residential networks, which allows businesses to monitor tasks for hours without interruptions.
• High Bandwidth: ISP proxies offer high bandwidth, which makes them suitable for high-volume tasks.

Disadvantages

• More Expensive: As ISP proxies are a combination of both residential and data center proxies, they tend to be more expensive than both of them.
• Low subnet: IPs in ISP proxies are grouped in a subnet. If one IP in the subnet gets blocked, others will likely get blocked too.
• Less anonymity & security: As they run on data center servers, they offer less anonymity.

Now that we have covered ISP proxies, let’s answer another question: “ What are Residential Proxies?” and when should you use them?

What is a Residential Proxy?

Residential proxies are intermediary servers that route your internet traffic through a real IP address assigned by the Internet Service Provider (ISP) to a legitimate residential device, such as a laptop or smartphone in a home. This makes your internet activity appear more human-like in a specific location. IPs are rotated for each request, hence giving you extra protection from bans as you constantly change your IP.

In simpler words, they work by routing your requests through multiple IPs. Although this makes them look real and difficult to detect and block, it also means slower data transmission times.

What are the Uses of Residential Proxies

Residential proxies are fitted for tasks that require a high level of anonymity, authenticity, and the ability to avoid getting flagged. Applications include:

Web Scraping on High-Security Sites

Since residential proxies can copy real users so well, they can be used in scraping sensitive data from websites with high security and anti-scraping measures.

Bypassing IP bans

If your IP is banned from a website, they will take extra security measures to ensure you don’t come back, and if you go back and they detect the same IP again, they will ban you again. Residential proxies are effective at bypassing IP bans because the website will think the traffic is coming from an entirely different user.

Account Management

Many websites don’t like the same user with more than one account. Using residential proxies, you can use different IPs for each account, helping you avoid detection. Proxying offers residential proxies that help user manage their accounts efficiently.

Ticket Purchasing

In some regions, the ticket is cheaper than in others. Residential proxies help resellers and purchasers navigate these using IPs of different devices located in various regions, and also reduce the risk of being banned.

Security Testing

Residential proxies can be used to test a website’s security system, as they are great at getting around testing software.

What are the Pros and Cons of Residential Proxies?

Residential proxies are great at masking your IP and providing anonymity, but they suck at speed. Let’s go through the advantages and disadvantages of residential proxies.

Advantages

Residential proxies offer these advantages:

• Hard to detect: As residential proxies use IPs from real people’s devices, it is very difficult for websites to identify them as proxies and ban them.
• Large pool of IPs: As residential proxies are derived from real users’ devices from across the world, it has a very large pool of IPs, offering IPs from various regions.
• High level of anonymity: Residential proxies provide a high level of anonymity as it has a very large pool of IPs.

Disadvantages

The disadvantages of residential proxies are:

• Slower speeds: As residential proxies take IPs from real person devices, these devices might have slower internet connections, drastically reducing the speed of connection and requests.
• Unstable connections: Static residential proxies can suffer from this issue as they use fixed IPs that can become unavailable due to network failure and may go through maintenance.

What are the Differences Between ISP and Residential Proxies?

Let’s go through the differences in how ISP and residential proxies handle different things.

Handling Different Network Protocols

Both ISP and residential proxies can handle basic protocols like HTTP, HTTPS, and SOCKS/SOCKS5.

• ISP proxies tend to process requests more quickly and have a more stable connection. They can both encrypt and decrypt traffic over HTTPS.
• Residential proxies process requests slowly but with higher security. They can handle more complex requests like P2P traffic.

Verdict: Depends on the use case.

Speed

• As we already told, ISP proxies are provided by the internet service providers and data centers, which prioritize providing high-speed connections.
• As residential proxies route traffic through real residential IP addresses, they are slower than ISP proxies.

Verdict: ISP proxies must be used when someone is looking for speed.

Annonymity

• ISP proxies can get around regular security, but not advanced systems.
• Residential proxies used real home IP addresses, making it harder to track and block.

Verdict: Residential proxies provide more anonymity.

Bandwidth

• ISP proxies offer high bandwidth as they are hosted in data center servers. Often, they even offer unlimited bandwidth.
• Residential proxies offer less bandwidth as they rely on real user connections.

Verdict: ISP proxies provide more bandwidth.

IP Rotation and Diversity

• ISP proxies have a very small pool of IPs to choose from, all come from one or two data centers. They need to be manually rotated. 

Verdict: Residential proxies are better

Cost

• ISP proxies are more expensive than residential, as they have high speeds and more reliability. They run on data center servers, which are usually expensive.
• Residential proxies are typically less expensive, but prices vary widely depending on quality, source, and availability. Some features, like AI-powered anti-detection features, can be more expensive.

Verdict: It depends on what the use case is.

ISP vs. Residential Proxies: Choosing the Right Proxy

Both have their pros and cons. The correct choice depends on your use case. Let’s go through the factors that can help you in choosing the right proxy:

• Budget: When you are willing to spend a good amount for the level, always look out for what your requirements are, so you get the performance you’re looking for.
• Speed: ISP  proxies are a better choice if you need speedy data transmission.
• Anonymity: Residential proxies are ideal when a user needs higher privacy.

Conclusion

It might be difficult to choose between an ISP and residential proxies, but when you know your requirements and you know what the pros and cons of both proxies are, it becomes easy to choose between them.