If you are using an IP address geolocation service, you most probably already know Ipstack (ipstack.com). The service has been operated by Apilayer since 2017, after they bought the open-source project freegeoip.net and rebranded it to Ipstack. It is a popular service, and some Ipregistry customers used it before switching. This page explains why, with an up-to-date comparison of plans, pricing, and included data.
Ipstack vs Ipregistry
| Features | Ipstack | Ipregistry |
|---|---|---|
| Free tier | Trial of 5,000 requests in total, with the location module only. | 100,000 free lookups on signup, with access to every data field. |
| Pricing model | Subscriptions: Basic at $12.99/month (50,000 requests), Professional at $59.99/month (500,000 requests), and Professional+ at $99.99/month (2,000,000 requests). Unused quota is lost each month. | Pay-as-you-go credits starting at $10 for 50,000 lookups. Credits never expire and there is no monthly fee. |
| Security and threat data | Professional+ plan only ($99.99/month). | Included with every lookup: VPN, proxy, and Tor detection, with a distinction between Tor relay and exit nodes. |
| Bulk Lookups | Professional+ plan only ($99.99/month). | Included, up to 256 IP addresses per request call. |
| Currency and time zone data | Paid plans only. |  |
| Carrier Data |  | |
| Company Name and Domain | ISP or company name only, no domain. | |
| User-Agent Data | Requires a separate Apilayer service (userstack.com). | |
| Country Borders and Population | | |
| Country Flags | Single basic shape. | SVG and PNG files you can hotlink (4 different flavors). |
| Output Format | JSON or XML. | JSON or XML. |
| Dashboard and API keys | Monthly usage monitoring. | Hourly and daily usage charts, multiple API keys per account, with per-key origin filtering and rate limiting. |
Why companies prefer Ipregistry over Ipstack
Pay for What You Use, With Everything Included
Ipstack sells subscriptions and splits its data into modules: security and threat data as well as the bulk endpoint require the $99.99/month Professional+ plan, and the free trial is limited to 5,000 requests in total with location data only. If your traffic is seasonal, you keep paying for quota you do not use.
With Ipregistry, you buy credits and spend them request by request. Credits never expire, there is no monthly fee, and every data field is included at every volume: security signals, carrier, company, currency, and time zone data are part of every single lookup, including the 100,000 free lookups you get on signup.
Low Response Time
Building a highly available and fast global API requires a lot of expertise. The Ipregistry API is distributed across multiple regions worldwide and serves continuously refreshed IP data directly from memory, which keeps response times in the low milliseconds from most locations. Rather than quoting a benchmark that will be outdated tomorrow, we suggest the honest test: run a few hundred lookups against both APIs from your own infrastructure and compare the latency distributions.
A Dashboard to Monitor and Take Actions
Ipstack displays your remaining API calls for the current month. Ipregistry goes further by displaying charts that let you interpret your hourly and daily usage at a glance, broken down per API key.
Ipregistry also supports multiple API keys per account, so you can use one key per isolated concern: one for your website, one for your backend, one for a partner integration. Each key has its own settings: domain and IP whitelisting restricts where a key can be used from, and per-key throttling caps how fast it can be consumed.
Extensive IP and Threat Data
Ipregistry provides more than 65 data points in a single request: ASN and connection details, IP range, company, carrier, currency, time zone, security signals, and geolocation. No need to subscribe to separate modules or products to get the data you need. Fields are organized by category in a hierarchy that makes usage and understanding a breeze.
Ready to compare for yourself? Create a free account and get 100,000 lookups with every data field included, no credit card required.
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