# Datacenter IP

A datacenter IP is an address inside a range operated by a hosting, cloud or server provider rather than by a consumer access network.

Date: 2026-09-10

A datacenter IP is an address inside a range operated by a hosting, cloud or server provider rather than by a consumer access network. Somebody rented the machine behind it.

## What Spaw answers

`is_datacenter` is the flag and `hosting_provider` names the operator when a feed identifies one. The risk score carries +40, above a commercial VPN (+30) and well below an unallocated address (+100), a blocklisted one (+80) or a [Tor exit](/glossary/tor-exit-node) (+70).

## What it means and what it does not

A person signing up from a datacenter address is not browsing from their sofa: they are on a VPS, a scraper, a CI runner, or a proxy someone rented. For a consumer signup that is unusual enough to be worth a second factor. For an API caller, a webhook receiver or a business customer it is completely ordinary, which is why the flag is a signal with a weight rather than a verdict.

The important limit is the other direction. An address that is *not* flagged is not thereby a person's home connection — see [residential proxy](/glossary/residential-proxy) for what open data cannot see.

Reference: https://spaw.co/glossary/datacenter-ip