Shifter vs Webshare
Looking for a Webshare alternative? Webshare returned the larger raw pool in four countries, but drew it from far fewer networks, and Shifter answered roughly twice as fast in every market tested while costing 46% less per GB.
Trusted by 50,000+ clients worldwide
Half the latency, half the price
Lowest published rate per GB from each provider. Webshare reaches $1.40 on its 3 TB plan at $4,200 a month.
| Monthly volume | Shifter | Webshare | You save |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry plan | $10 5 GB at $2.00/GB | $3.50 1 GB at $3.50/GB | 43% |
| 10 GB | $20 $2.00/GB | $27.50 $2.75/GB | 27% |
| 50 GB | $50 $1.00/GB | $122.50 $2.45/GB | 59% |
| 100 GB | $100 $1.00/GB | $225 $2.25/GB | 56% |
| Best rate | $0.75/GB from 200 GB | $1.40/GB 3 TB at $4,200/mo | 46% |
Live IPs online during the test
Distinct IPs each network had live and reachable at test time, not the size of its total network. Residential IPs rotate all day, so both providers serve far more addresses across 24 hours.
Every metric, country by country
Pick a country to see the complete measurement, including the numbers that did not go our way.
| Metric | Shifter | Webshare |
|---|---|---|
| Requests sent | 250,000 | 250,000 |
| Live IPs during the test | 136,667 | 150,512 |
| Unique networks (ASNs) | 1,606 | 1,518 |
| Unique cities | 5,813 | 5,954 |
| Average latency | 364 ms | 975 ms |
| Success rate | 99.8% | 99.9% |
Shifter reached 1,606 US networks against Webshare's 1,518 and answered in 364 ms against 975 ms, close to three times faster. Webshare held only 9.2% more live IPs, at $1.40 per GB against $0.75.
How we measured this
For every request we opened a new connection through the provider's rotating residential gateway and read back the exit address from an IP echo service. A fresh connection forces a fresh exit, so distinct addresses map directly to how much of the pool was reachable.
Webshare and Shifter were tested with the same request counts, concurrency of 1,000, a 10 second timeout and the same target, one provider at a time on one server so the two never competed for bandwidth.
Each country ran at a fixed volume applied equally to both providers, ranging from 60,000 requests in the smallest market to 250,000 in the United States, 560,000 per provider overall.
What these numbers mean
Each figure counts IPs that were live and reachable during the test window rather than the total size of either network. Residential addresses rotate constantly as real devices connect and disconnect, so across a full day both providers serve millions of them. What matters to a running crawl is how many respond at the same moment, which is what this measures. Because sample size varies by country, the bars compare the two providers inside a country, not between countries.
Why use Shifter residential proxies?
Roughly twice as fast, everywhere
324 ms against 937 ms in Canada, 364 ms against 975 ms in the United States. Shifter answered faster in all five countries, usually by a factor of two or more.
Far wider network spread
148 French networks against 96 and 276 German against 188. Webshare's larger address count sits on noticeably fewer autonomous systems, which is what anti-bot systems key on.
Ahead in the United Kingdom
53,506 live British IPs against 51,564, the one country where Shifter also led on raw count.
46% less per GB at scale
$0.75 against $1.40, and $100 against $225 for a 100 GB month, without the 3 TB commitment Webshare's best rate requires.
Frequently asked FAQ questions
Common questions about how we benchmarked Webshare.
Point an HTTP client at an IP echo endpoint through both gateways, opening a fresh connection per request so each one rotates, and count distinct addresses. Use identical request counts, the same machine and the same hour for both providers.
Measure it on your own workload
Pool size and latency behave differently on every target. Run the same test against the sites you scrape, in the countries you need, and let your own numbers decide.