Rotating vs static datacenter proxies: which do you need?

What does provider rotation do?

With provider rotation, you send every request to one gateway, and the gateway forwards each request, or each session, through a different IP from its pool. You never see the list; you only see that the exit address changes.

This is convenient when a job wants a different IP for each request and does not care which one. It has costs. You cannot tell a partner which IP to allowlist. You cannot keep a session on one address unless the provider offers "sticky" sessions. And pool IPs are often shared, so you inherit what other users did with them. For datacenter pools, rotation also changes less than it seems: the new IP usually comes from the same few networks (ASNs), and IP databases label them all "hosting".

What do static datacenter proxies give you?

Static datacenter proxies give you a fixed list of IPs that stay yours for the rental. Dedicated: during your rental, each IP is assigned to your account only and is not shared with other RackProxies customers. Each rental lasts 30 days from delivery. Renew from your account before the end date; keeping the same IPs after a rental ends is not guaranteed.

A fixed list fits jobs that need a known address:

• Allowlists. A partner API, firewall or staging server accepts only the IPs you register. See allowlisted API access.
• Sessions. A logged-in session on your own service stays on one IP.
• Monitoring. Results from the same IP and the same city are comparable day after day.
• Accountability. When something goes wrong, you know which IP did what, and you can tell the site owner.

How do I rotate across my own static proxy list?

Keep the list in your code and pick the next IP for each request. A round-robin cycle sends request 1 through IP 1, request 2 through IP 2, and so on, then starts again. A sticky mapping sends each website through the same IP every time, which keeps sessions stable.

The Python example below does both with the requests library. Replace the documentation lines with the IP:PORT:USERNAME:PASSWORD lines from your account; the connection format page explains each field.

"""Spread jobs over your own static IPs: round-robin, or one fixed IP per site."""
import hashlib
import itertools
from urllib.parse import quote, urlsplit

import requests  # pip install requests

# One line per IP, copied from your account: IP:PORT:USERNAME:PASSWORD
LINES = [
    '203.0.113.24:8000:USERNAME:PASSWORD',
    '203.0.113.97:8000:USERNAME:PASSWORD',
    '198.51.100.7:8000:USERNAME:PASSWORD',
]


def to_proxy_url(line):
    ip, port, user, password = line.strip().split(':', 3)
    return f'http://{quote(user, safe="")}:{quote(password, safe="")}@{ip}:{port}'


PROXIES = [to_proxy_url(line) for line in LINES]
next_proxy = itertools.cycle(PROXIES)


def fetch_round_robin(url):
    proxy = next(next_proxy)  # 1st, 2nd, 3rd, then back to the 1st
    return requests.get(url, proxies={'http': proxy, 'https': proxy}, timeout=20)


def fetch_sticky(url):
    # The same website always leaves from the same IP: steady sessions and allowlists.
    host = urlsplit(url).hostname or ''
    index = int(hashlib.sha256(host.encode()).hexdigest(), 16) % len(PROXIES)
    proxy = PROXIES[index]
    return requests.get(url, proxies={'http': proxy, 'https': proxy}, timeout=20)


if __name__ == '__main__':
    for _ in range(3):
        print(fetch_round_robin('https://api.ipify.org').text)
    print(fetch_sticky('https://httpbin.org/ip').json())

Is rotation a way around a website's limits?

No. If a website limits how fast one client may request pages, that limit applies to your job, however many IPs it uses. Rotating IPs to exceed it is evading the limit, and it is against our acceptable use policy.

Use rotation across your list for honest reasons: to spread load across many different sites, to keep working when one IP has a problem, and to check results from several locations. To go faster on one site, slow down your schedule, use the site's official API, or ask the owner. The sizing guide shows how to size a list without relying on rotation.

When is a rotating product the better choice?

A rotating gateway is the better choice when you need a very large number of different exits for short tasks, you never allowlist anything, and you are comfortable with shared IPs billed per GB. That is a residential or rotating-pool use case, and RackProxies does not sell it.

If you need a fixed set of addresses, one price per IP and the same IPs all month, static is the better fit. Plans run from 1 IP at $1.29 to 100 IPs at $59.25; see pricing. The datacenter vs residential comparison covers the wider choice.