Datacenter vs ISP proxies
Technically these are the same product: a server with an IP address. The difference is registration. ISP addresses are registered to a consumer internet provider, datacenter addresses to a hosting company, and that single field is what most bot detection looks at first.
Datacenter
- Providers selling it
- 7
- Cheapest we hold
- $0.90
- Dearest we hold
- $0.90
Fixed ISP
- Providers selling it
- 4
- Cheapest we hold
- —
- Dearest we hold
- —
When datacenter is the right call
Cost is the constraint and the target does not check. Datacenter is the cheapest bandwidth in this market by a wide margin, and where it works it is strictly better than ISP: same speed, same stability, lower price. There is no reason to pay the ISP premium for a target that never looks.
When fixed isp is the right call
The target checks the ASN but you still need hosted speed and a persistent address. ISP buys you exactly one thing over datacenter (an address that resolves to a consumer provider rather than a hosting company) and for a target filtering on that field, it is the difference between working and not.
What the vendor blogs leave out
You are paying a premium for a database entry. That sounds dismissive and is not: for a site that filters on ASN registration, that entry is the whole product. But it does mean the ISP premium is worth nothing at all against a target that does not filter, and the only way to find out is to try the cheaper one first.
Questions
Is an ISP proxy just a datacenter proxy with a different registration?
Yes, and that is the honest description. Both run on servers in datacenters. ISP addresses are obtained through arrangements with consumer internet providers, so they carry that provider's registration.
Which is faster?
They are comparable, both are hosted on real infrastructure rather than consumer devices. Neither has the latency variability that residential does.