Residential proxy vs Datacenter proxy What s the difference TechRadar Skip to main content TechRadar is supported by its audience. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission. Here's why you can trust us. Supported (opens in new tab) Residential proxy vs Datacenter proxy What s the difference By Jonas P. DeMuro Knowing one from the other can make all the difference In Association with (opens in new tab) (Image credit: Pixabay) We'll venture to guess that the average internet user does not think much about the type of IP address they are using. Rather, they just want their device, whether it is the latest smartphone (opens in new tab) or a company laptop (opens in new tab), just to connect instantly to the internet without any intervention, and devoid of any thought. Thankfully, for the most part, devices these days can perform exactly to that standard. That being said, there are times when some thought is required, and the type of connection can certainly matter. In those situations, understanding the type of connection that you are on can make a considerable difference. When it comes down to it, an IP address is simply a string of numbers, with a few periods in place, that identifies the user on the internet. Finding out your own IP address is quite simple, with any number of websites, including Google directly with an entry into the search bar of "What is my IP address" providing this information. IP addresses often get categorized in different ways. One common way is static versus dynamic addresses, while another way is public versus private addresses. (opens in new tab) Protect your online privacy with IPRoyal (opens in new tab) Use TECHRADAR10 at checkout and get an extra 10% off IPRoyal's residential proxies. This discount stacks with IPRoyal's existing bulk discounts. View Deal (opens in new tab) Stepping up the game  When a user just goes online directly using their Internet Service Provider (ISP), they get assigned a dynamic address from the pool of addresses that the provider rotates through. A more savvy user may want a higher level of protection, going online through a Virtual Private Network (opens in new tab), and this way their true location and identity gets masked as the IP address they are using leads back to the VPN provider, and not the user directly as they are using a proxy address. Furthermore, the data is encrypted to a high level of security between the VPN provider and the user so that it is highly secure. No place like home Also realize that while a VPN has many uses (opens in new tab), it is not the only solution to be anonymous while online. An alternative is a residential proxy, which allows the user to connect to an intermediary proxy server (opens in new tab). This then allows the user to remain anonymous while online. However, unlike a VPN, there is no encryption of data traffic, so it can be intercepted. By computing through the alternate IP address, that appears to be from an individual user, any requests appear to be coming from any other individual user. In fact, users also get to choose a local location so they can appear to be within the country, or even within a specific city. Residential proxies tend to be useful for smaller web scraping activities. They are also useful to access content that is geo-restricted, such as country specific video streams. A major shortcoming is that residential proxies tend to be more costly as each provided IP address appears to come from an individual residence through an ISP, but this is also what makes it more trustworthy. (Image credit: Pixabay) Economies of scale  The opposite of a residential proxy is the datacenter proxy. Unlike each IP address going back to a residential address as in the residential proxy which works through the residential ISP network, rather in the datacenter proxy the IP address appears to originate from a datacenter. Therefore, it does not appear as an individual user, but often has faster throughput speeds as it goes through the datacenter's enterprise internet connection. Having all the IP addresses in a single location, namely the data center, also makes it more affordable. There are also options to appear in a different country, or city so that the user will appear to be in the area when accessing the website. While a residential proxy gets offered by an ISP, a datacenter proxy provider is usually a cloud service provider, such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) (opens in new tab), or Google Cloud. The typical use case scenario for a datacenter proxy is a larger web scraping operation, as the provider will be able to offer millions of IP addresses so the website to be scraped for data can be accessed a large number of times. A datacenter proxy, unlike a VPN, does not encrypt the data as it does not create the data tunnel that a VPN employs. At first glance, this would seem to be a disadvantage, and from the standpoint of privacy and security, a datacenter proxy is. However, not encrypting the data also has its advantages. The first is that there is a computing overhead to encrypt data to 256-bit encryption, and decrypt it at the other end, so a datacenter proxy can offer faster throughput. The second advantage is that datacenter proxy traffic can get through in countries, such as China or Iraq, that block a VPN as the traffic is not encrypted. In conclusion  The fast speed of a datacenter proxy is what supports and makes them the proxy of choice for high speed web scraping applications. By running this through a data center, the centralized computing power can be leveraged, making this a more affordable option. We've featured the best business VPN. TechRadar Pro created this content as part of a paid partnership with Iproyal. The contents of this article are entirely independent and solely reflect the editorial opinion of TechRadar Pro. Jonas P. DeMuro Jonas P. DeMuro is a freelance reviewer covering wireless networking hardware. Are you a pro? Subscribe to our newsletter Sign up to theTechRadar Pro newsletter to get all the top news, opinion, features and guidance your business needs to succeed! Thank you for signing up to TechRadar. You will receive a verification email shortly. There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again. MOST POPULARMOST SHARED1The iPhone 14 Pro is made of the wrong stuff; the Pixel 7 proves that to me2Stop saying Mario doesn't have an accent in The Super Mario Bros. Movie3Google Pixel Tablet is what Apple should've done ages ago4RTX 4090 too expensive? Nvidia resurrects another old favorite5More than one million credit card details leaked online1The iPhone 14 Pro is made of the wrong stuff; the Pixel 7 proves that to me2iPhone 15 tipped to come with an upgraded 5G chip3If this feature succeeds for Modern Warfare 2, Microsoft can't ignore it4Apple October launches: the new devices we might see this month5The Rings of Power episode 8 trailer feels like one big Sauron misdirect Technology Magazines (opens in new tab)● (opens in new tab)The best tech tutorials and in-depth reviewsFrom$12.99 (opens in new tab)View (opens in new tab)