Residential and datacenter proxies both serve the same core functionality - hiding the IP addresses associated with personal computers to uphold online anonymity whilst browsing, scraping, crawling and analyzing. They both act as intermediaries between a user’s device and the internet, receiving and relaying requests from a computer to a destination website without the individual’s identity being revealed. 

Yes, because residential proxies use genuine IP addresses, they are much harder to track and, as such, offer greater security than datacenter proxies. For even greater levels of security, use rotating residential proxies. These will change your IP address each time you connect to the proxy server, keeping your identity and activities untraceable.

Even though residential and datacenter proxies both provide internet users with online anonymity and prevent blacklistings, there are key differences between them. These are in relation to their source, reliability, cost and typical use cases.

Residential proxies are:

• • Genuine IP addresses assigned by ISPs to real residential users

• • Generally more secure, since they are harder to identify and block

• • More expensive due to higher operating and sourcing costs

• • Used for tasks where privacy and anonymity are of central concern
  
  

Datacenter proxies are:

• • Hosted in bulk inside large, centralized data centers

• • Generally more reliable, since they are not affected by network congestion

• • More affordable due to lower operating costs

• • Used for processing high volumes of data at speed or across multiple locations

Proxies are fast becoming an essential feature of our online lives. Whether it’s by enhancing security and anonymity, providing faster internet speeds, accessing location-restricted content, stabilizing web connections or otherwise, proxies will streamline your user experience and let you do what would otherwise be impossible. Check out our full infographic on the 8 reasons why you should be using a proxy for more information.