Proxies are near-legendary for their capabilities. The digital world is built on the foundation of proxies. From HTTP that used to drive the world to HTTPS, which causes the world today, and SOCKS5 that provides all of the bulletproof encryption that we so desire.
While there are more proxies than you can imagine, the selection of proxies regularly is quite slim. A popular way to categorize proxies is by their IP address, which brings us to the topic at hand – Dedicated IP vs Shared IP, which is better for you?
Below, we’ll discuss just that and give you essential information that you can then use to decide what the right option is for your specific need.
Defining Proxies and Their Business Use
Proxies are many, and depending on their type and purpose – people and businesses use them for wildly different things. Companies use proxies for many reasons, such as crawling, securing their data, or simply cutting down on costs of operation.
Through proxies, businesses can dramatically increase the speed at which their website operates, allowing them to provide content to the user at a much faster rate.
The security that proxies provide augments the security, ensuring all the sensitive data online is well-protected. Data breaches are far more common than you might think. They could be very costly, especially if you’re dealing with any clients on your website.
Proxies are also a fantastic tool if you’re looking to save on bandwidth, as they streamline connections to an impeccable extent.
Shared Proxies
Shared proxies are proxies in which an IP address is shared across multiple users. They’re incredibly affordable and are fantastic if you’re looking to crawl the web undetected. Businesses use web crawlers to accumulate as much data as possible from the web, and shared proxies are good ways to do so.
While not every shared proxy will work for this, the affordability allows you to run multiple proxies simultaneously.
Shared proxies are also fantastic if you’re looking to avoid any geo-restrictions. Many countries worldwide censor their internet far more than you might be aware of, so employing a proxy to hide your location will help you assess much new content.
These proxies aren’t ideal, though, as they’re known for their relatively slow speeds. When you’re sharing a proxy with someone, you’re also sharing bandwidth, meaning that your connection is quite unreliable.
Lastly, while these proxies might be fantastic for users looking to access Netflix in other countries or remain anonymous – they’re not that ideal for business purposes aside from scraping.
a) Benefits
- Very simple
- Extremely affordable
- Works for web scraping
b) Use cases
- Unblocking geo-locked content
- Web spiders
Dedicated Proxies
Dedicated proxies are superior to shared proxies in every way, shape, and form, aside from costs. The IP address you get with a dedicated proxy is solely yours, and no one else will be using it. That’s why the connection speeds are far faster, the connection itself is more reliable, and you can rest assured you have the utmost anonymity.
These proxies are also used by businesses, as they act as an intermediary between the website and the user requesting content from it. Dedicated proxy security is bulletproof, which protects companies from hackers and data leaks.
Through the use of dedicated proxies, you can also streamline internal operations. Everything is as fast as possible, meaning you can seamlessly manage different aspects of your web presence.
a) Benefits
- Bulletproof security
- Fast operation
- Easy management
- Reliable connection
b) Use cases
- Security & Encryption
- Management & Social Media
- Anonymity
- Market research
- Web crawling
Main Differences
The main differences between these two options are the amount of security, reliability, stability, and of course, price. Shared proxies are far cheaper than dedicated proxies but are also far less applicable in most aspects of businesses. They do work well for some tasks, such as web crawling, where many proxies must avoid detection and subsequent ban.
Dedicated or private proxies are far better than shared proxies, as they can do virtually anything that shared proxies can and that much more – but they’re far more expensive to purchase and use.
In Conclusion
Choosing between dedicated IP vs shared IP isn't difficult when you know your needs. While both proxies are good – they both have their pros and cons, so there’s no universal option. What you choose should solely depend on your needs, as both are used for very different things. If you’re looking for a proxy that’s cheap, efficient, and good for crawling – shared is the way to go.
If you’re looking for a full-stack option for security, research, and management, you should go for dedicated.
