Static vs Rotating Proxies for Businesses

Many companies today use proxies to stay ahead of the competition. They do market research and collect large amounts of product information from e-commerce sites, among other use cases. A proxy allows to hide the user’s real IP address and location.

In some cases, you need an IP that isn’t yours but stays the same until you change it. In other scenarios, an address that rotates with every connection request you make is the better fit. Let’s find out which suits your business – static or rotating proxies.

What Are Static Proxies?

Static proxies are IP addresses that don’t change. So, when you connect to a website with a static proxy server, you’ll always have the same IP address, but it’ll differ from your real one.

Not all proxy servers can have static addresses – In essence, only datacenter or ISP (also called static residential) proxies. The reason is that both types are hosted on servers that are always online. Mobile and residential proxies, on the other hand, are rotating by nature, as they rely on the devices of home users that can go offline at any time.

Yet, there are some exceptions. You can get static mobile IP addresses if they run on a phone farm, but eventually they’ll rotate because of the way mobile networks work. And if you need to hold the same residential IP, most proxy vendors allow creating a sticky session that lasts for 30 minutes or until the source goes offline.

Peculiarities of Static Proxies

Static proxies usually come in the form of a list. For example:

• 456.789.10:1000
• 567.891.112:1000
• 678.910.11:1000

Since these proxies are hosted on servers with an internet connection up to 10Gbps, they’re fast and stable. You can share a static proxy with others or get it for your exclusive use. The difference is cost.

Talking about pricing, the preferred method is to charge users per IP. Datacenter IPs are cheaper, while ISP addresses are more expensive. That’s because they’re associated with consumer internet service providers rather than hosting companies. The cost between shared and private proxies also differs.

However, static proxies have some limitations. They’re pretty inflexible – once you buy a list of IPs, it’ll be hard to change them. For example, if you want a different location, you won’t be able to choose another one without paying for extra proxies. Or, when you get a finite list of IPs, you’ll have to take care of each address in case it gets abused.

What Are Rotating Proxies?

Rotating proxies automatically rotate from a pool of IP addresses. You can get a new proxy with every connection request or – based on the service – after a specified time period. A simple example: if you need to make 1,000 requests and appear as a different user each time, go with a rotating proxy service because it’ll give you 1,000 IPs.

Rotating proxies are mostly associated with residential addresses due to their unpredictable nature. However, any proxy type can rotate, including datacenter proxies – it depends on the provider’s setup.

Also read: What is a Proxy and What are They Used For?

Peculiarities of Rotating Proxies

With rotating proxies, you get access to a pool of IP addresses that are shared with other people. These pools can include thousands or even hundreds of thousands of proxies. You connect via a gateway server that usually takes the form of hostname:port, such as en.proxyprovider.com:5000.

Performance-wise, rotating IPs are very hard to detect because you constantly get new IP addresses. On the other hand, they’re easy to maintain – if your address goes down, you can simply rotate to a new one. You also get flexibility – you can choose different parameters like location whenever you want.

Usually, rotating proxies have traffic-based pricing, but some providers charge for ports (IPs you can access at the same time). Residential proxies are cheaper than mobile IPs but more expensive than datacenter proxies.

Static vs Rotating Proxies for Businesses

Depending on what businesses you’re in, static and rotating proxies are used for different purposes.

Static proxies provide an IP address that doesn’t change until you decide otherwise. So, if you’re managing multiple social media accounts, or you need to go through a multi-step flow like checking out from an e-commerce store, then a static IP address is better for the job.

In addition, some businesses prefer to use static proxies because they don’t meter traffic use. If they use robust tools and know how to preserve the limited number of IPs, this can save significant money compared to traffic-based services.

Rotating proxies work best with tasks where you constantly need a different identity. This is mostly associated with collecting large amounts of data from travel, e-commerce, or other websites. For example, they’re useful for web scraping pricing information and product specifications, doing sentiment analysis and other similar tasks.

Conclusions

The choice between static and rotating proxies depends on specific needs. If you want to get a proxy that doesn’t change, static IP addresses are right for the job. If you’re web scraping large amounts of data, you may want a proxy that rotates with every connection request to avoid CAPTCHAs and IP blocks.