Trying to learn more about datacenter proxies? come in now to discover both the advantages and disadvantages of datacenter proxies. Read our articles written by experts today and make an informed decision today.
There are basically 3 types of proxies when proxies are classified based on who owns the IP range they use – datacenter, residential, and mobile. The focus f this article is on datacenter proxies. you are going to be learning about the pros and cons of datacenter proxies.
It is important you know about their weaknesses and strength so that you only buy them for use in areas that they are applicable. This is important since datacenter proxies have some set of setbacks that makes them not applicable in some areas. Before we look at their pros and cons, let take a look at what they are and how they work.
What is a Datacenter Proxy?
A datacenter proxy is a proxy that makes use of IPs owned and managed by data centers. Unlike in the case of residential proxies that routes requests through devices that make use of IP Addresses owned and assigned by ISP, datacenter proxies make use of their own IP Addresses. This makes it possible for them to have more control over the security and speed of your traffic.
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How Do Datacenter Proxies Work?
The model of datacenter proxies is what is used in explaining the working principle of proxies because of its simplicity. In most cases, there is no need for rerouting clients’ requests through other devices other than the proxy server itself.
When you send a request to a website using a datacenter proxy, the request goes through the datacenter proxy server. The server then strips out your IP Address and replaces it with a different IP Address before sending the request to the website. After processing the request, the response is sent to the proxy which then forwards it to you.
Usually, because your IP Address is removed from the request, the website won’t know the request originates from you. It will think the request is coming from the proxy server. However, since most complex websites can detect IPs from proxy servers, they deny them access to their service. Let take a look at the pros of datacenter proxies.
Pros of Datacenter Proxies
While some Internet marketers will frown at the mention of datacenter proxies, some are opened to using them because of some of the strengths they have over the other types of proxies. some of these strengths are discussed below.
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Cheap and Affordable
The main reason people make use of datacenter proxies is their pricing – they are incredibly cheap. Some dedicated private proxy can be bought with just a US Dollar, and you will use it for a month. I know with $10, you can buy 10 proxies from InstantProxies.
Shared datacenter proxies are even cheaper, with IPv6 datacenter proxies being the cheapest you can get in the market. It might interest you to know that almost all datacenter proxies come with unlimited bandwidth. They usually also allow you to create a good number of threads.
However, they place restrictions on the number of devices you can use their proxies on concurrently. because of all these, most small Internet marketers with small budgets use them to cut costs.
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Extremely Fast
There is one area I know of that residential proxies can’t come close to datacenter proxies – the area of speed. If speed is a very important factor for your application and you need proxies that can move at the fastest speed possible, then I will advise against using residential proxies; datacenter proxies should be your choice in this regard.
Most of them are hosted on high-performance servers that can provide you an Internet speed of up to 1 Gbps. This is in contrast to residential proxies. residential and mobile proxies are slow because they route your requests through other devices.
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Readily Available
It does not take much to develop infrastructures that will be used for building datacenter proxies. This is because no Internet Service Provider is required for datacenter proxies to be developed. This makes datacenter proxies very much available.
This can be seen from the number of datacenter proxy providers available in the market. Unlike selling datacenter proxies, the barrier of entry into selling residential proxies is higher, and as such, only a few providers are in the market. This, in turn, makes datacenter proxies cheaper.
Cons of Datacenter Proxies
From the above, you can see those datacenter proxies are cheap, very fast, and readily available. But why do people avoid using them? This is because of some of their weaknesses. Let take a look at the most popular ones below.
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Not Compatible with Complex Websites
Most complex websites do not allow the use of proxies on their sites. Because of this, they have systems in place to restrict access to requests passing through a proxy server. Datacenter proxies can easily be detected by these websites since their IP range is not owned by ISP but by data centers.
Because they are easily detected, they are more susceptible to blocks than other types of proxies. Datacenter proxies are also more associated with spam than residential proxies. because of all these, datacenter proxies are not compatible with many popular websites.
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Why Residential IPs Get More Legitimate Compared to Datacenter IPs?
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Geolocation Targeting is Limited
For a proxy service to provide proxies for a particular location, they need to have a proxy server in such a location. This makes it difficult for datacenter proxy services to provide proxies in many locations.
This is in contrast to residential proxies where they make use of peer to peer network to provide proxies for locations they do not have a server. This is the reason you see most datacenter proxies have proxies in limited locations like the US and a few other locations in Europe.
Conclusion
Datacenter proxies, just like any other type of proxies, have their strengths and weaknesses. While some will want to see them as inferior, they are not; they are just a different type of proxies used for different purposes. They can be very useful when you need high speed or when you are on a very low budget. However, you just have to know that they are not compatible with some strict websites.