Why we use private proxies for scraping
Public proxies are fine for a quick experiment. For anything that needs to finish on a schedule, they're usually a waste of time.
We've watched jobs fail not because the HTML changed, but because the exit IP was already on every blocklist in the zip code. Shared proxies get that reputation fast: dozens of people hammer the same endpoints through the same addresses.
What “private” actually buys you
A private (or dedicated) proxy means you're not sharing that IP with strangers. Bandwidth and reputation stay closer to what you put into them. That matters when a site rate-limits by IP or quietly serves different content to known bad ranges.
- Stability — fewer mid-job disconnects and fewer mystery 403s.
- Speed — less contention; you're not waiting behind someone else's crawl.
- Control — sticky sessions, geo targeting, and predictable rotation rules.
When public proxies still make sense
Low-stakes research, one-off checks, or targets with almost no bot defense. If a failure just means you try again tomorrow, don't overspend.
How we pick them
Residential or ISP proxies for sites that fingerprint datacenter ranges. Datacenter proxies when the target is light and volume is high — they're cheaper and often fine. Always test a small sample before committing a full crawl budget.
Also: a good proxy with bad session hygiene still gets banned. Pair the IP with consistent cookies and sane request rates. The proxy is only half the setup.