Detect hosting providers by IP address

If you're running a web service, chances are you’ve asked: “Is this IP a real user, or a server in the cloud?” Knowing whether an IP address belongs to a hosting provider — like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud — can help you detect bots, scrapers, abuse, or even misclassified traffic. In this guide, we’ll explain what hosting providers are, why detecting them matters, and how developers can reliably determine if an IP address belongs to one — both manually and automatically. What is a hosting provider? A hosting provider is a company that offers infrastructure — servers, storage, bandwidth — so that websites and applications can be accessed over the internet. Today, this mostly means cloud services like: Amazon Web Services (AWS) Microsoft Azure Google Cloud Platform These providers control large blocks of IP addresses. Traffic from them often comes from bots, crawlers, scrapers, or backend systems — not regular users browsing your site. Why detect hosting providers? Detecting whether an IP is from a data center or hosting provider can help you:

Apr 21, 2025 - 08:55

If you're running a web service, chances are you’ve asked: “Is this IP a real user, or a server in the cloud?”

Knowing whether an IP address belongs to a hosting provider — like AWS, Azure, or Google Cloud — can help you detect bots, scrapers, abuse, or even misclassified traffic.

In this guide, we’ll explain what hosting providers are, why detecting them matters, and how developers can reliably determine if an IP address belongs to one — both manually and automatically.

What is a hosting provider?

A hosting provider is a company that offers infrastructure — servers, storage, bandwidth — so that websites and applications can be accessed over the internet. Today, this mostly means cloud services like:

These providers control large blocks of IP addresses. Traffic from them often comes from bots, crawlers, scrapers, or backend systems — not regular users browsing your site.

Why detect hosting providers?

Detecting whether an IP is from a data center or hosting provider can help you: