Differences between Residential Proxy and ISP Proxy

We are all familiar with the different types of proxies. A proxy server is a computer system, often located in a datacenter servers and connected to the Internet via an IP address known as a 'proxy'. The term 'proxy' is used because it is a system that acts on behalf of other systems. A proxy server may also be called a gateway, caching server, or transparent proxy.
Let’s quickly summarize the two kinds before we move on.

Residential Proxy

A residential proxy server is a computer that resides on your local area network, outside of the firewall in your organization. It is used to deliver web traffic to other computers within your organization or the Internet. The Residential Proxy acts as a gateway between the internal network (LAN) and the Internet; it forwards requests from internal clients to their destination on the Internet and vice versa.

ISP Proxy

An ISP proxy server (also known as an edge server) is a computer that resides on the public Internet and provides access to resources such as websites, FTP servers, and mail transfer agents (MTA). It is used by clients within an organization to provide access to resources on the Internet. An ISP proxy does not have any direct knowledge of internal networks or users; all requests are directed through an external DNS server first which then passes them on from there according to the URL requested by the client.

The basic difference

A residential proxy is a private system installed on your own computer by yourself. It can be used for many purposes, such as Web browsing and file transfer.

An ISP proxy is provided by the Internet Service Provider (ISP) who provides the access to the Internet from your home or office premises. These ISPs typically have their own Internet servers which provide you with internet access and host websites for their subscribers.

There is no single best proxy, but here is a compared list of Residential proxy and ISP proxies:

1. Source: The Residential proxy has real people's devices as its source while the ISP proxy uses servers in datacenters as a source.
2. Speed: The speed of the residential proxy is comparatively lower while the ISP proxy offers a very high speed.
3. Stability: When it comes to stability, a residential proxy is at best at a low/medium level and an ISP proxy is remarkably more stable.
4. Locations: Residential proxies are very helpful if you need to work with multiple locations at once. In the case of ISP proxies, it’s hard to get IPs in a wide range of countries.
5. Exclusivity: Residential proxy providers give all customers access to the same proxy pool, while it can be shared or private proxy for ISP.
6. Use case: Residential proxy is best to use for websites that have a strict protection mechanism like social media platforms and needs precise location tracking. You can use an ISP proxy that requires identity tracking and strict control over the IP address.

Final verdict

No type of proxy is better than the other on all parameters. It’s simply a matter of what you need. Depending on your requirements and preferences, one will work better for you than the other. So, it’s recommended to first determine your exact needs and then choose the kind of proxy you’d be using.

Here at Shiftproxy, we take our service quality seriously. That’s why you’ll only get the best kind of proxy experience with our ISP proxies.