If you run an e-commerce operation—or any project that relies on tracking prices, stock levels, or competitor moves—you already know how valuable timely product data can be. Unfortunately, the sites you need most often fight back with rate limits, CAPTCHAs, and outright IP bans. That’s why seasoned scrapers lean on proxies.
But which kind of proxy makes more sense: one that stays put (static) or one that hops from address to address (rotating)? Below, I’ll unpack how each option works, when to reach for one over the other, and a few practical pointers to keep your scraper humming along. Feel free to skim the headings that match your situation.
What Counts as a Static Proxy?
A static proxy hands you a single IP address and keeps you on it until you decide to switch. Think of it as renting a small office: your “street address” never changes, so you can set up shop, keep cookies intact, and revisit the same pages without raising eyebrows.
Quick traits
- Sticky IP: requests come from one address
- Session-friendly: perfect for actions that mimic a logged-in user
- Predictable performance: latency and throughput rarely fluctuate
Typical jobs
- Account dashboards that require a persistent login
- Paginated data that needs the same session ID from page to page
- Small-scale product checks where speed matters less than stability
What Makes a Proxy “Rotating”?
A rotating proxy reroutes every request (or every few requests) through a fresh IP drawn from a large pool. It’s more like working out of co-working spaces around the city. You gain anonymity at the cost of a fixed location—which is often exactly what high-volume scrapers need.
Quick traits
- Automatic IP changes: per request or on a timer
- Higher anonymity: harder for anti-bot systems to pin you down
- Great for scale: distributes traffic so one address never carries all the load
Typical jobs
- Massive price monitoring across thousands of product URLs
- Market-wide availability checks run on tight schedules
- Competitive-intelligence crawls that can’t afford repeated CAPTCHAs
Side-by-Side Snapshot
| Aspect | Static Proxy | Rotating Proxy |
|---|---|---|
| IP stability | Single, unchanging | Changes automatically |
| Session support | Excellent | Limited or none |
| Ban resistance | Moderate | High |
| Suited for | Logged-in or multi-step flows | Bulk scraping & stealth |
| Cost profile | Usually lower | Often higher |
| Setup effort | Straightforward | Slightly more involved |
A Word on Proxy “Flavors”
Residential
IPs issued by consumer ISPs. They come in both static and rotating bundles and are tough for websites to flag.
Datacenter
Fast, cheap IPs from server farms. Great for speed, but easy to spot if you hammer a site too hard.
Mobile
Addresses routed through cellular networks. They rotate often and are notoriously tricky for defences to block—best for mobile-specific targets.
When a Static Proxy Belongs in Your Toolkit
Use a static proxy when you must look like one steady visitor:
- You log in, scroll product listings, add items to a cart, or trigger any flow that expects a stable session cookie.
- You scrape a small number of pages on a predictable cadence.
- Your target site bans new IPs faster than it bans repeat requests from the same IP.
Remember, overusing a single IP still raises suspicion, so throttle your request rate and mix in short pauses.
When Rotating Proxies Earn Their Keep
Reach for rotating proxies if scale and stealth outrank everything else:
- You have a long URL list—hundreds of thousands, sometimes millions—to fetch.
- You routinely hit hard limits (requests per minute or per day) on a site.
- You can tolerate occasional slower or uneven response times in exchange for far fewer blocks.
Because each request appears to come from a different visitor, you dodge most automated defenses without micromanaging request delays.
Choosing Between the Two
Ask yourself:
- Do I need to stay logged in? If yes, static is safer.
- How many pages am I scraping? Tens of thousands or more usually push you toward rotating.
- What’s my block tolerance? If your campaign can’t afford getting shut out mid-run, rotation helps.
- Is budget tight? Datacenter static IPs are the bargain pick, but they’re also easiest to detect. Residential rotating IPs cost more yet blend in better.
Hybrid setups exist, too. Some providers let you keep a static (“sticky”) session for a set window—say 10 minutes—before switching. That gives you session continuity without locking you to one address all day.
Final Take
Proxies aren’t a one-size-fits-all solution. A static proxy offers consistency and simplicity for tasks that mimic normal browsing. A rotating proxy, by contrast, shines when you need to pull huge volumes of publicly available data without tripping rate limits.
Match your choice to your scraping goals, traffic volume, and tolerance for blocks. Spend a little time measuring what actually trips defenses on your target site—then pick the proxy plan that smooths out those bumps rather than over-engineering from the start. In most real-world projects, you’ll end up pairing both approaches: static IPs for logged-in endpoints, rotating pools for everything else.