Semi-dedicated proxies occupy an interesting middle ground between shared and private proxies. They provide some of the benefits of a private proxy along with the cost savings of a shared proxy. For certain use cases, they can be the perfect balance of performance, privacy, and affordability.
What Are Semi-Dedicated Proxies?
A semi-dedicated proxy is an IP address that is shared by a limited number of users, usually 2-10. This is in contrast to a private proxy, which is dedicated to a single user, or a shared proxy, which can have hundreds or thousands of users.
With a semi-dedicated proxy, a small pool of users share the same IP address. Each user gets a portion of the bandwidth and resources from that IP. So you don‘t get the full capability of a private proxy, but you also don‘t have the congestion issues inherent with shared proxies.
Semi-dedicated proxies are sometimes referred to as "shared private proxies" because they have qualities of both shared and private proxies:
Like a shared proxy:
- The IP address is shared by multiple users
- Lower cost than a private proxy
Like a private proxy:
- Fewer users per IP than a shared proxy
- More bandwidth per user than a shared proxy
- Increased privacy compared to shared
The limited user pool provides a balance where users get many of the advantages of a private proxy but at a more affordable price point.
How Do Semi-Dedicated Proxies Work?
With a semi-dedicated proxy, a provider acquires pools of IP addresses from data centers around the world. They configure those IPs to accept traffic from a limited number of users per IP.
Each user is assigned 1-10 IPs to use from their pool. So you have a dedicated portion of the bandwidth and resources from those IPs. But the IPs themselves are potentially shared with a handful of other users.
Because fewer people are using each IP, users get a guaranteed slice of bandwidth and resources from each semi-dedicated proxy IP. This prevents the congestion issues that frequently plague shared proxies.
Most semi-dedicated proxy services use dynamic IP allocation. This means you are not assigned the same IP addresses each time. When you request a proxy, you‘re allocated an available IP from the pool. This helps maximize the availability of IPs across all users.
Rotation is important for semi-dedicated proxies to further distribute usage and mimic the appearance of different users across IPs. Some services rotate IPs automatically while others require manual cycling.
Why Use Semi-Dedicated Proxies?
Here are some of the key benefits that make semi-dedicated proxies useful for certain applications:
Lower Cost Than Private Proxies
The main advantage of semi-dedicated proxies is they can provide substantial cost savings over private proxies. Based on IP volume, they can cost 50-75% less than private proxies.
For example, a private residential proxy might cost $4 per IP, while a semi-dedicated residential proxy is $1.50-$2 per IP. For datacenter proxies, a private proxy could be $15 vs $5-$10 for semi-dedicated.
This cost difference is because the IP address is shared across a handful of users. So the proxy provider can allocate the IP more efficiently across multiple customers.
More Bandwidth Than Shared Proxies
With shared proxies, hundreds of users compete for bandwidth on the same IPs. This leads to congestion, connection errors, captchas, and IP blocks.
By limiting users per IP, semi-dedicated proxies ensure each user gets a functional allocation of bandwidth with less competition. This makes semi-dedicated proxies faster and more reliable than shared proxies.
Increased Privacy Over Shared
Hundreds of people using the same IPs means shared proxies have poor privacy. Your browsing activity is commingled with all other users on those IPs.
With just a few people per IP, semi-dedicated proxies isolate users and reduce the linkability of their web activity. This makes them more private than shared proxies.
Bypass Geographic Restrictions
Like all proxy types, semi-dedicated proxies allow you to route your traffic through servers in specific countries and cities. This lets you access geo-restricted content by appearing to browse from different locations.
Less Configuration Than Private Proxies
Private proxies often require more customization like whitelisting IPs and configuring proxy manager software. With semi-dedicated proxies, you can often just use the proxy IPs out of the box like a shared proxy.
Scalability On Demand
Most semi-dedicated proxy providers allow you to scale up and down on demand. So you can increase your IP count to handle more tasks or reduce it during slow periods to save on costs.
This scalability makes semi-dedicated proxies ideal for situations where your usage varies. You only pay for the resources you need.
Use Cases For Semi-Dedicated Proxies
Here are some of the most common use cases where semi-dedicated proxies offer a good fit:
Web Scraping
Web scraping can be done at scale with shared proxies, but semi-dedicated proxies offer more bandwidth and reliability for challenging scraping projects. The increased performance helps ensure complete data extraction.
Sneaker Bots
Copping limited release sneakers requires running hundreds of tasks across many proxies. Semi-dedicated proxies provide the necessary bandwidth without the cost of all private proxies.
Ad Verification
Running ad verification tasks requires IP diversity across a large number of domains. Semi-dedicated proxies provide lots of IPs for minimal costs.
Price Monitoring
Monitoring prices and inventory on ecommerce sites needs to be done consistently without IP blocks. Semi-dedicated proxies offer stable long-term usage for price scraping.
Brand Monitoring
Brand monitoring across social media, forums, and blogs needs clean IPs to avoid blocks. The low-volume semi-dedicated IP rotation works well for consistent brand monitoring.
Product Research
Researching products on competitor websites requires browsing from different IPs to avoid detection. Semi-dedicated proxies enable affordable large-scale product research.
Travel Aggregation
Scraping flight/hotel booking sites to aggregate travel data is very IP intensive. The geo-targeting and volume of semi-dedicated proxies suits travel aggregation well.
Account Creation
Creating accounts at scale needs a wide variety of IPs to avoid blocks. Semi-dedicated proxies provide the IP diversity for safe account creation.
Betting Arbitrage
Arbitrage bots need to access many betting sites worldwide, which requires lots of geo-targeted proxies. Semi-dedicated proxies offer cost-efficient global IP diversity.
As you can see, semi-dedicated proxies strike a versatile balance for moderately intensive web scraping, automation, and data collection tasks.
Key Differences Between Semi-Dedicated & Private Proxies
While semi-dedicated proxies can serve many use cases, there are some key limitations compared to private proxies:
Bandwidth – Private proxies have dedicated bandwidth, while semi-dedicated bandwidth is shared between users. For high throughput applications, private proxy bandwidth is superior.
Speed – With guaranteed 100% network resources, private proxies will be faster than shared bandwidth on semi-dedicated proxies.
Usage Limits – Private proxies have virtually no usage limits since you alone dictate capacity. Semi-dedicated proxies have some usage limits based on the shared bandwidth.
Control – Private proxies give you full control and customization since you are the sole user. Semi-dedicated proxy controls are more limited.
Privacy – Private proxies offer complete IP isolation and privacy. Semi-dedicated privacy is compromised slightly by the shared user pool.
Cost – Private proxies are 2-5x more expensive than semi-dedicated for the same number of IP addresses.
Scalability – Private proxy providers may offer limited packages with less flexible scaling. Semi-dedicated proxies often allow real-time scaling up or down.
Targeting – Private proxies give you the ultimate targeting ability, while semi-dedicated targeting depends on the provider‘s pooled IPs.
So in summary, private proxies will provide better performance, privacy, and control. But semi-dedicated can offer major cost savings while still being "good enough" for many use cases.
Choosing a Semi-Dedicated Proxy Provider
Not all semi-dedicated proxy services are created equal. Here are some key factors to consider when choosing a provider:
Network Type – Residential, datacenter, or mobile proxies? You need the network that‘s best suited for your sites/tasks.
Geo Targeting – Do they offer IPs in your required countries and cities?
Carrier Diversity – For residential proxies, look for a wide variety of ISP IPs.
Proxy Protocols – Do they support SOCKS, HTTP, HTTPS (SSL)?
Speed – How fast are the proxy connections and response time?
Reliability – Check reviews for uptime/reliability. Measure ping times/packet loss.
Features – Rotating IPs, API access, mobile apps, etc. Helpful features improve experience.
Reputation – Examine the provider‘s reputation for blocks and bans from major sites.
Support – Do they offer timely and effective customer support?
Cost – Compare pricing models (per GB, per proxy, unlimited) to optimize costs.
Free Trial – The best way to evaluate proxies is to test them out in your own use cases.
To find the best fit, you need to measure proxies against these criteria relative to your specific needs.
Recommended Semi-Dedicated Proxy Providers
Here are some of the most reliable and effective semi-dedicated proxy services I‘ve used:
BrightData – One of the largest and most established proxy providers. Tons of features and excellent reliability.
GeoSurf – Specialize in residential proxies with good speeds and handy integrations.
NetNut – Budget-friendly proxies ideal for web scraping and automation tasks.
Proxyrack – Focus on smart tools that make proxies easy to manage and use.
Oxylabs – Powerful proxies with great support, though more expensive than competitors.
Smartproxy – Offer a wide variety of residential and datacenter proxies across 195+ locations.
Storm Proxies – Great performance and reliability with unlimited plans for scalability.
I‘ve had generally good experiences with this group of semi-dedicated proxy services. But you should still do your own vetting to make sure any provider aligns with your specific use case.
Wrapping Up
Semi-dedicated proxies occupy an appealing middle ground between private and shared proxies. For low-medium intensity tasks, they offer an optimized blend of cost, performance, and privacy.
Compared to shared proxies, they provide more generous bandwidth allocations and increased privacy from fewer users per IP.
And they achieve significant cost savings over private proxies by sharing IPs across a handful of users.
For businesses and teams with fluctuating proxy needs, semi-dedicated proxies can provide flexible scaling and cost optimization. The limited shared bandwidth is "good enough" performance for many non-CPU intensive use cases.
Just be aware of the limitations compared to private proxies when evaluating semi-dedicated proxy providers. Make sure to test proxies thoroughly with your specific applications before committing.
When used for the right workloads, semi-dedicated proxies hit a sweet spot between affordability, performance, and privacy. They bring most of the perks of private proxies without the premium price tag.
