Top 5 ISP proxies: the best of both worlds
ISP proxies are in the spotlight nowadays and this is so for a good reason. Whether it is for social media account management, eCommerce store access, or purchasing limited-edition sneakers — dedicated datacenter IPs or rotating residential proxies might not be the solution.
To explain why it’s first important to understand web proxies in general.
A web proxy is a server that acts as a middleman between the proxy user and a website. So when the proxy user requests data from a website it wants to browse, the request is first sent to the proxy server and then from there to the website, hiding the proxy user’s real IP (the website can only see the proxy server’s IP). Then, the data is sent back to the proxy server which forwards it back to the proxy user. All of this happens automatically of course.
There are several types of web proxies, and perhaps you’ve encountered the terms datacenter or residential proxies on a blog post or an ad. If you haven’t, let’s lay down the basics:
Residential proxies are IPs of real people’s devices, that are leased to proxy network users so they can hide their real IP while performing various tasks online, such as market research, account automation, and more. Those devices can be pretty much anything that is connected to the internet — a smartphone, laptop, smart tv, etc.
The thing that makes those residential IPs so valuable is that they are rarely identified as malicious by websites and are available in any country or city in the world allowing whoever is using them to bypass GEO-location restrictions, and more. So an eCommerce manager from, say, the Netherlands can visit the Amazon US store using an IP of someone in, say, Chicago and see the products and prices that are exclusively displayed to shoppers located in that area.
The downside of these residential proxy IPs is that they are using mobile devices that in many cases have limited connection speeds. This interferes with tasks that require high bandwidth and thousands of concurrent requests. Another issue is that sometimes these IPs become unavailable — for example when the user’s device loses its wi-fi internet connection or powers down — which prompts the proxy network to assign the proxy user a new IP (of some other device in that same area) so they can continue their task. This is called IP rotation and it’s beneficial for certain types of tasks (such as web scraping) and hazardous for others (like managing Facebook ad accounts).
Datacenter proxy IPs, are pretty much the opposite of residential proxies. These are hosted on super-fast server farms across the globe and allow users to have high performance and 100% network uptime. However, since they use very structured subnets their IPs are easily recognized by most websites and they are often flagged and blocked.
This dichotomy makes it hard for beginners to choose the suitable proxy network for their use case.
This is where ISP proxies come to save the day.
You can view ISP proxies as residential proxies that are hosted in a data center server rather than a user’s device.
Therefore, with ISP proxies, you get the benefits of a data center server speed and the clean fingerprint and anonymity of residential IPs.
Why choose ISP proxies?
ISP proxies have become increasingly popular for social media automation purposes. They allow you to manage multiple accounts without being detected or banned. This is because IPs associated with ISP networks are trusted by eCommerce and social media websites. They are less prone to be blocked by subnet bans since they do not use the same subnets as datacenter proxies.
Unlike residential proxies, where peer IPs become available and then go offline in unpredictable time intervals, ISP proxies don’t require to rotate. This makes them most useful for longer sessions that require a consistent identity like social media account management or automated sneaker botting. They are also highly useful for managing an eCommerce store in a different location from where your real IP is.
ISP proxies are more expensive than residential and datacenter ones but are still cheaper than mobile ones. The subscription plans are usually based either on the number of IPs or traffic bandwidth, depending on the provider and use case.
How are ISP Proxies sourced?
Most ISP companies have spare IPs and subnets that they often sell to proxy network services. The proxy network owners happily pay the premium for purchasing these IPs in bulk. Otherwise, they would have to solely rely on the tedious and risky process of sourcing real residential user device IPs to be used as proxies. This is usually done via SDK partners and bandwidth sharing passive income apps (such as Earnapp, Honeygain, and IPRoyal pawns).
In the past, ISP proxies were mostly called “static residential” IPs, to differentiate them from rotating residential IPs.
Dedicated vs. Shared ISP proxies
Just like datacenter proxies, ISP proxy pools can be purchased as dedicated or shared. That’s because proxy service providers have complete control over those IP addresses, unlike peer-to-peer residential IPs.
Using dedicated ISP proxies will ensure a clean history with the websites you want to access through them. They can be further optimized in location targeting or response time.
Generally speaking, commercial websites can’t afford too much user churn and therefore avoid blocking these IPs even if they are used by several accounts. However, if you are running a business it is always wise to use dedicated ISP proxies with exclusive domains. That means you are the only one using that IP on a specific domain and can’t be affected by another proxy user that did something stupid while using that IP.
The leading ISP proxies available in 2022
Here is a list of the top 5 ISP proxy providers:
- Bright Data
- NetNut
- Oxylabs
- Rayobyte
- Astoproxy
Bright Data
- 700,000+ fully-compliant ISP proxies ✅
- The largest geographic coverage with city-level targeting ✅
- Fastest response time in the proxy market ✅
- Used by over 15,000 businesses & Fortune 500 companies ✅
- 100% network uptime ✅
- 24/7 live support and dedicated account manager on all plans ✅
- Supports SOCKS5 and HTTP(S) ✅
- Cloud or native open source proxy manager tool ✅
- $0.50/IP + $11.25/GB at 500$ per month plan with unlimited data ✅
- Pay-as-you-go option available ✅
Bright Data is famous for its best-in-class residential proxy network, however, its ISP proxies are just as excellent. Recently it has added a new layer to its service — premium dedicated ISP proxies for super-fast sneaker release purchasing (currently IPs located only in the US).
NetNut
- 1m residential IPs in 30 countries, mostly US with state and city targeting in US ✅
- 99.9% network uptime ✅
- 750$ for 50 GB plan is the lowest entry point to get 24/7 live support ❌
- Supports SOCKS5 and HTTP(S) ✅
A good choice especially for users who want to target US city level.
Oxylabs
- 100,000+ static residential proxies ✅
- The second largest geographic coverage ✅
- 99.9% network uptime ✅
- 700$ per month for 50 GB ✅
Oxylabs only recently included this product on its website, which means it is still under development.
Rayobyte (formerly Blazing SEO)
- 2,500+ ISP proxies ❌
- Available locations — US, UK, Germany ❌
- Slower response times from the above providers ❌
- Supports SOCKS5 and HTTP(S) ✅
- 5$ per IP starter plan ✅
Rayobyte is considered an up-and-coming mid-tier proxy service, but still has ways to go with its proxy management tools.
Atroproxy
- An unknown number of IPs in 12 countries ❌
- Supports SOCKS5 and HTTP(S) ✅
- 99.9% network uptime ✅
- 7.3$ per GB starter plan ✅
- No transparency regarding support ❌
A cheap proxy provider, with an affordable entry-level plan. Not recommended for major businesses as there’s not enough transparency regarding IP sourcing and compliance.
Now that you know about the benefits of ISP proxies and how they deserve a separate category from both datacenter and residential proxies, feel free to send in your comments with questions and recommendations.
