When you go out shopping for virtual private network (VPN) solutions, it is important to know what exactly is on offer and how different decisions you make will affect your business as well as those who work there. The fundamental decision you need to make is whether you need a shared or a dedicated IP VPN.
You most likely have come across the term dedicated IP VPN, and you’ve wondered how that differs from the regular VPN. The following are four ways these two types of VPN differ, as well as the advantages and disadvantages of each:
1. How they work
This is the most basic difference between the two types of VPNs, and indeed it is the cause of the other differences on this list.
When you join a regular VPN, you become one of the many users on the same IP address. That means if a VPN service provider assigns you a Boston USA IP address, there are going to be tens, hundreds, or even thousands of other users from around the world who are assigned the same IP address. This is why they are also known as shared IP VPNs.
When you join a shared IP VPN, you are also likely to be frequently moved from one IP to another. That means the IP address your VPN service provider assigns you today might be different from what they assigned you yesterday and what they are likely to assign you tomorrow.
Meanwhile, when you choose a dedicated IP VPN plan, you get a single IP, and you are the only one who is using it. In other words, you don’t share an IP address with other users, and you are not moved from one IP address to another unless you request it.
2. The types of privacy they offer
Using the same IP address with many others and having it change frequently is both an advantage and a disadvantage. On the one hand, it makes it even more difficult for others to track your activities online as there are many others using the same IP, and it keeps changing. On the other hand, it makes it easy for websites and other online platforms to identify machines that are using VPNs.
While both shared and dedicated IP address VPN plans offer you privacy, it is not really the same type of privacy. With a shared IP VPN, you have additional privacy levels because you use the same IP address with many others, and it frequently changes.
With a dedicated IP address VPN, your privacy comes only from the fact that you are interacting with the internet through an IP that is not directly linked to you. Indeed, it can be argued that a shared IP VPN offers better privacy than a dedicated IP address VPN.
3. Online respectability
The previous point touched on how a dedicated IP address VPN makes you sacrifice some amount of privacy. However, there is something that you gain for it, and that is the legitimacy before the websites you visit.
Most websites are not friendly to VPN IP addresses, and that is because they see them as a challenge to their processes and ability to determine the identities of visitors. For example, a VPN denies Netflix its ability to segment the people who visit to watch movies.
These platforms react by blacklisting users they deem to be using VPNs. Others, like Google search engines, will make you go through verification procedures that can impact your user experience. They might also slow your emails’ movement as they have to scrutinize each of them to ensure they are not spam.
The main ways these platforms can tell you are using a VPN is if you are using one with many other people or your IP address keeps changing frequently. That means that if you are using a dedicated IP address, they will not easily tell if you are using a VPN.
From a business perspective, with a dedicated IP VPN, you can manage the people accessing your internal resources and systems, especially when part of the entire team works remotely.
4. The cost
The other difference between the two is what they will cost you. The dedicated IP address VPN plans are priced above the regular VPNs. The cost can be explained by the fact that the service provider has to have a single person use an IP address to have otherwise tens, hundreds, and even thousands using.
From the above pointers, it is clear that there are reasons why you may prefer the normal VPN, such as not costing you much money and masking you in several layers of privacy. On the other hand, there are also reasons why you may prefer using a dedicated IP address VPN, such as the fact that you can avoid being blacklisted or receiving slow service.
