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GuidesJan 28, 2026·6 min read

Residential vs. Datacenter Proxies: 2026 Guide

The proxy market in 2026 has matured considerably. Most buyers understand the basic distinction — residential IPs come from real devices, datacenter IPs come from server farms — but the nuances matter enormously when you're choosing infrastructure for production workloads.

Datacenter proxies: speed and cost

Datacenter proxies are fast (sub-10ms latency), cheap ($1.50–$4.50/IP/month), and highly reliable. The downside: they're easier to fingerprint. Large IP blocks from the same ASN can be flagged collectively.

Best for: Price comparison, SEO monitoring, data aggregation from less-protected sites.

Residential proxies: authenticity at a premium

Residential IPs look exactly like home users. Detection rates plummet — but so does your budget. They're 3–10× more expensive and typically bandwidth-metered.

Best for: Social media, heavily protected targets, account management.

ISP proxies: the best of both worlds

ISP proxies (also called static residential) are datacenter-speed connections assigned genuine ISP IP blocks. In 2026 they've become the go-to for most serious scraping operations.

Best for: SERPs, ticketing, hard e-commerce targets.

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