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:

  • 🛡 Mitigate bots and scrapers — Block or throttle IPs that are likely running automated scripts.
  • 🔒 Enhance security — Catch suspicious logins or scans from known infrastructure.
  • 📊 Classify and analyze traffic — Know how much of your traffic is real users vs automation.
  • 🎯 Target content or ads — Serve different experiences based on where traffic comes from.
  • 💰 Prevent abuse or fraud — Hosting IPs are often used in credential stuffing, fake signups, or scraping.

Manual detection using public IP data

Some cloud providers publish their IP ranges publicly. Developers can use this to build basic detection logic:

You can download and parse these lists to check if an IP falls within a known range. But this approach has downsides:

  • IP lists change often — you’ll need to update regularly
  • Some providers don’t publish their ranges
  • Many smaller or regional hosts aren’t covered
  • Matching and maintaining CIDR checks at scale is tricky

Automatically detect hosting providers using IPLocate

Instead of maintaining your own data, IPLocate provides an API that does it for you — with accurate, fast results.

You can check if an IP belongs to a hosting provider using:

privacy.is_hosting flag

A simple boolean (true or false) that tells you if the IP is from a hosting provider or datacenter.

hosting object

For IP addresses that belong to hosting providers, the hosting object provides more detailed info:

{
  // ...
  "privacy": {
    "is_hosting": true,
  },
  "hosting": {
    "provider": "Amazon AWS",
    "domain": "amazonaws.com",
    "network": "54.239.16.0 - 54.239.31.255"
  },
  // ...
}

This lets you not just detect, but identify the hosting source — useful for dashboards, logs, or dynamic rules.

You can find more about the response format in IPLocate’s API docs.

IPLocate updates its hosting provider data daily, using a unique algorithm that identifies hundreds of smaller hosting providers as well as the big players.

Example: Detecting a hosting provider with IPLocate

Using curl:

curl https://www.iplocate.io/api/lookup/54.239.28.85?apikey=your_api_key

Using Node.js:

const iplocate = require('node-iplocate');

const results = await iplocate('54.239.28.85', { api_key: "YOUR_API_KEY" });
console.log(results.privacy.is_hosting); // true
console.log(results.hosting.provider);   // "Amazon AWS"

You can also use fetch, Python, PHP, and other SDKs. See IPLocate’s full client library list in their docs.

Putting it into practice

Here are a few ways developers use this in production:

  • Blocking hosting IPs from hitting public APIs
  • Flagging suspicious login attempts from cloud networks
  • Scoring traffic risk in fraud detection systems
  • Analyzing visitor types in dashboards
  • Automatically banning scrapers and crawlers

Because IPLocate updates its IP intelligence daily — combining public and proprietary data — it stays accurate even as providers shift their allocations.

Looking to detect cloud or hosting traffic fast? Try IPLocate’s API — no need to parse and maintain giant IP lists. Just one HTTP request gives you everything you need.