Why ipapi.is is better than ipinfo.io

This blog post explains why ipapi.is surpasses ipinfo.io in terms of company (company object) and ASN (asn object) accuracy.

It will be demonstrated on concrete IP address and ASN samples why ipapi.is is better than ipinfo.io in terms of company and ASN accuracy. In the field of IP Address Data, mistakes and inaccuracies have serious consequences. Data accuracy is therefore of utmost importance.

The Importance of Company and ASN Accuracy

Company and ASN data constitute one of the most important data points in the API, since many other API fields are derived from it or data pipelines depend on the accuracy of company data. It therefore makes sense to periodically investigate the accuracy of company and ASN data and compare it to other IP APIs.

But why is company and ASN data accuracy considered so important?

For example, in order to correctly classify if an IP address belongs to a hosting provider, the API needs to know the correct and up-to-date company name and domain, so that the companies website can be found and it can be determined if it is an hosting provider or not. The same applies to VPN and TOR detection. Correct company data is also partially used in IP Geolocation, since more often than not, company names provide hints about the location of an organization.

Furthermore, every ASN and company organization are classified into the following five possible types of organizations: hosting, isp, education, government and banking. This type classification is very important, since it is used to determine the reputation of an ASN or network. For example, a government or banking organization is more likely to be trustworthy than a hosting organization. For this reason, misclassifications can have serious consequences.

Company Data

ipapi.is provides company data in the company field of its API response.

For example, when looking up the IP address 24.220.180.178, the API response includes the company object with the following output:

"company": {
  "name": "Midcontinent Communications",
  "abuser_score": "0.0003 (Very Low)",
  "domain": "midco.com",
  "type": "isp",
  "network": "24.220.0.0 - 24.220.255.255",
  "whois": "https://api.ipapi.is/?whois=24.220.0.0"
},

As the example above shows, ipapi.is provides various information about the company that owns the IP address. The most important fields of the company object are:

• company.name - The name of the organization that owns the IP address based on WHOIS data.
• company.domain - The domain name of the organization that owns the IP address based on WHOIS data.
• company.type - The type of the organization. This can be hosting, isp, education, government, banking or the generic business type.
• company.network - The network that the IP address belongs to and that was allocated / assigned to the organization.

ASN Data

ipapi.is provides ASN data in the asn field of its API response.

For example, when looking up the IP address 24.220.180.178, the API response includes the asn object with the following output:

"asn": {
  "asn": 11232,
  "abuser_score": "0.0002 (Very Low)",
  "route": "24.220.0.0/16",
  "descr": "MIDCO-NET, US",
  "country": "us",
  "active": true,
  "org": "Midcontinent Communications",
  "domain": "midco.com",
  "abuse": "abuse@midco.net",
  "type": "isp",
  "created": "1998-05-22",
  "updated": "2016-08-01",
  "rir": "ARIN",
  "whois": "https://api.ipapi.is/?whois=AS11232"
},

As the example above shows, ipapi.is provides a lot of information about the ASN. The most important fields of the ASN object are:

• asn.asn - The ASN number.
• asn.org - The name of the organization that owns the ASN.
• asn.domain - The domain name of the organization that owns the ASN.
• asn.type - The type of the organization. This can be hosting, isp, education, government, banking or the generic business type.

Methodology

In order to determine the ground truth of what is the correct organization, the WHOIS record of either the IP address or ASN is looked up. Based on this WHOIS record, the correct organization name can be found. Then it is often obvious by googling the organization name what must be the correct website / domain for this organization. Lastly, based on manual inspection of the website and organization name, it is possible to determine the correct organization type.

This ground truth is then compared to the API results that were obtained by looking up the IP addresses and ASNs on ipapi.is and ipinfo.io. In a last step, the API results are checked whether they are correct or not.

Comparison of IP Addresses

In the following table, various IP addresses are looked up using both ipapi.is and ipinfo.io. For those IP addresses, the organization name and organization type are compared. The raw data was collected on January 5th, 2025 and can be downloaded here:

• ipapi.is data for the IP addresses
• ipinfo.io data for the IP addresses

For each IP address, it is analyzed whether the organization name and organization type are correct or not for both IP APIs.

Comparison of ASNs

In the following table, various ASNs are looked up using both ipapi.is and ipinfo.io. For those ASNs, the organization name and type are compared.

Conclusion

This blog post has shown based on concrete examples that ipinfo.io often makes critical errors in classifying organization types and finding the correct organization names. Company and ASN data is often the basic data upon which other, often critical decisions are made. If this basic data is not accurate, the decisions based on it can be very harmful.

ipinfo.io especially fails to find the correct org names and types for lesser known ASNs or networks. It seems that their data is more accurate on US based nets and ASNs, but they struggle with correctly labeling data from other parts of the world such as Europe or Asia.

This blog post is maybe slightly biased, since the IP and ASN examples were picked in a way that highlights the weaknesses of ipinfo.io. But it is undeniable that ipinfo.io fails to find the correct data for those examples.

Unfortunately, it is not easy to make a truly random and large scale comparison between ipapi.is and ipinfo.io, since for every random IP address, the ground truth needs to be established first, which is very time consuming.