Shifter vs Webshare
Looking for a Webshare alternative? Shifter returned the larger live pool in four of five countries, from more networks in four, and answered roughly twice as fast in every market tested while costing 46% less per GB. Webshare kept the lead only in Germany.
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 | 212,212 | 150,512 |
| Unique networks (ASNs) | 1,828 | 1,518 |
| Unique cities | 5,805 | 5,954 |
| Average latency | 427 ms | 975 ms |
| Success rate | 100% | 99.9% |
Shifter held 41.0% more live US IPs, 212,212 against 150,512, reached 1,828 networks against Webshare's 1,518 and answered in 427 ms against 975 ms, more than twice as fast, at $0.75 per GB against $1.40.
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. Shifter was re-measured on 7 October 2026 with identical settings; Webshare's figures come from its run on 5 August 2026.
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
377 ms against 937 ms in Canada, 427 ms against 975 ms in the United States. Shifter answered faster in all five countries, by roughly a factor of two or more.
Wider network spread in four markets
147 French networks against 96 and 272 German against 188. Webshare's addresses sit on noticeably fewer autonomous systems there, which is what anti-bot systems key on.
A larger live pool in four of five
212,212 live US IPs against 150,512, 41.0% more, and ahead in Britain, France and Canada too. Germany is the one country where Webshare held more.
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 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 settings for both providers.
Because this is the number of IPs live at the time of the test, not a total. Advertised figures count every address a network has ever seen. Residential IPs rotate all day, so both providers serve millions across 24 hours. We measured how many were reachable in one country at one moment, which is the number that limits a crawl.
Three reasons the tables show. Shifter returned more live IPs in four of five countries, drew its addresses from more networks in the United States, France, Canada and Germany, and answered roughly twice as fast in every country. A pool concentrated on fewer networks is easier for anti-bot systems to fingerprint.
It compounds. At the Canadian latencies here, a million requests is about 105 hours of waiting with Shifter against 260 with Webshare. On long crawls that difference shows up as throughput rather than a number on a page.
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.