Shifter vs Infatica
Looking for an Infatica alternative? We counted the residential IPs each network had live and answering in five markets. Shifter led all five, reached a wider spread of networks in every one, and costs 71% less per GB at scale.
Trusted by 50,000+ clients worldwide
Every provider in this series gets the same test: plain HTTP, one fresh connection per request, 1,000 concurrent, 10 second timeout. Infatica completed 0 of 560,000 requests under it. Its gateway answered every single one with a redirect to the HTTPS form, so it cannot be used over plain HTTP at all. That is a real constraint on your integration: an HTTP client pointed at this gateway gets redirects rather than data, and each request has to carry a TLS handshake instead. The counts below therefore come from a second run over a CONNECT tunnel, which is the only transport it accepts.
More coverage, at a fraction of the rate
Lowest published rate per GB from each provider. Infatica's floor needs a 1 TB commitment, while Shifter reaches its best rate from 200 GB.
| Monthly volume | Shifter | Infatica | You save |
|---|---|---|---|
| Entry | $10 5 GB at $2.00/GB | $96 25 GB at $3.84/GB | 48% |
| 100 GB | $100 $1.00/GB | ~$300 ~$3.00/GB | 67% |
| Best rate | $0.75/GB from 200 GB | $2.60/GB 1 TB tier | 71% |
Live IPs online during the test
Measured over a CONNECT tunnel, the only transport Infatica's gateway accepts, since it completed none of the standard plain HTTP test. Both sides ran the same volumes against the same target. These are IPs live and reachable at test time, not the size of either network.
Every metric, country by country
Pick a country to see the complete measurement, including the numbers that did not go our way.
| Metric | Shifter | Infatica |
|---|---|---|
| Requests sent | 250,000 | 250,000 |
| Live IPs during the test | 212,212 | 139,334 |
| Unique networks (ASNs) | 1,828 | 1,279 |
| Unique cities | 5,805 | 5,504 |
| Success rate | 100% | 99.1% |
Shifter held 52% more live US IPs, 212,212 against 139,334, drawn from 1,828 networks against 1,279, a 43% wider spread, and covered 5,805 cities against 5,504. A 100 GB month costs $100 with Shifter against roughly $300.
How we measured this
Every provider in this series receives the identical test: plain HTTP to an IP echo service, one fresh connection per request, 1,000 concurrent, 10 second timeout, and fixed volumes of 250,000 requests in the United States, 100,000 in the United Kingdom, 80,000 in France, 70,000 in Canada and 60,000 in Germany. One connection per request means one fresh exit per request, so distinct addresses map directly to the reachable pool.
Infatica completed none of it. We report that as the result rather than quietly changing the test, because a gateway that will not answer a plain HTTP client is something you need to know before you wire it in.
To produce comparable pool figures at all, Infatica was then re-run over a CONNECT tunnel, the transport it does accept, at the same volumes and concurrency against the same target. Latency is not compared anywhere on this page: the tunnel adds a TLS handshake to every request that the plain HTTP Shifter run does not carry, so the timings would measure our transport rather than their network. Shifter's figures are from its 7 October 2026 re-measurement on the standard plain HTTP test, with the identical server and settings; Infatica's come from its run on 12 August 2026.
What these numbers mean
Every count on this page is the number of IPs that were live and reachable at the time of the test, not the size of either provider's network. Residential IPs rotate constantly as real devices come online and drop off, so across a full day both networks serve far more addresses than a single window can capture. What limits a crawl is how many respond at the same moment, which is what this measures.
Why use Shifter residential proxies?
A larger live pool in all five markets
84% more in France, 52% more in the United States, 43% more in Canada, 34% more in Germany and 31% more in the United Kingdom, against the same target.
Wider network spread in every market
1,828 US networks against 1,279, 147 French against 44, 272 German against 154. Concentration on fewer networks is what makes a pool easy to fingerprint.
71% less per GB
$0.75 against $2.60 at each provider's best published rate, and Infatica's floor needs a 1 TB commitment while Shifter's arrives at 200 GB.
Answers the standard test
Shifter completed the same plain HTTP test in every market. Shifter accepts HTTP, HTTPS and SOCKS5, so your client works whichever you point at it.
Frequently asked questions
Common questions about how we benchmarked Infatica.
Only on geo accuracy, by a tenth of a point: Shifter placed 99.9% of requests in four markets against Infatica's 100% in all five. Shifter led the live pool in all five markets and reached more networks in all five, including 212,212 US IPs against 139,334 and 1,828 US networks against 1,279.
It means an HTTP client pointed at Infatica's gateway gets a redirect instead of data. All 560,000 requests in our standard test came back that way. It is not that the network has no IPs, it is that the gateway only serves over an HTTPS tunnel, so every request has to carry a TLS handshake. Shifter answers plain HTTP, HTTPS and SOCKS5 alike.
Because the two runs used different transports. Infatica's counts come from a CONNECT tunnel, which adds a TLS handshake to every request, while Shifter's come from plain HTTP. Comparing those timings would measure our transport rather than their network, so we left it out rather than publish a number that flatters us.
It counts IPs live at test time rather than every address the network has ever seen. Residential IPs rotate all day, so both providers serve far more across 24 hours. What limits a crawl is how many are online at once.
Five: the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Canada and Germany, run on the same machine with identical request volumes for both providers in each market. Infatica was measured on 12 August 2026 and Shifter re-measured on 7 October 2026.
More networks, less per GB
A wider spread of networks in every market we measured, a larger live pool in all five, at 71% less per GB.