Difference between IPV4 and IPV6


IPV4: IPV4 is the internet protocol version 4 and it has 32 bit address length. It is used to uniquely recognize a device on a network by the proper addressing system. IPV4 is considered as the first version of IP.

IPV6: IPV6 is the internet protocol version 6 and it has 128 bit address length. It is considered as the most recent version of the internet protocol. This new IP address version has been developed for overcoming the needs of more devices connecting to the internet.


IPV4 IPV6
1. IPV4 is a 32 bit (4-byte) IP address. 1. IPV6 is a 128 bit (16-byte) IP address.
2. In IPV4 address, decimal notations are separated by dots (.) 2. In IPV6 address, it specifies hexadecimal colon notation. The address is composed of 32 hexadecimal digits and every 4 digits are separated by colon (:)
3. It has 232 address space. 3. It has 2128 address space.
4. IPV4 is less secure. 4. IPV6 is more secure.
5. Address depletion is still a big problem in IPV4 though class address has been replaced with classful addressing. 5. IPV6 address has been developed to overcome the problem of address depletion and providing more internet connections to new and newer devices.
6. Real time audio and video transmission in IPV4 address. 6. Real time audio and video transmission facilities are more reliable in IPV 6address.
7. No encryption and authentication facilities are provided by IPV4 address. 7. Proper encryption and authentication facilities are provided in IPV6 address.
8. It has broadcasting message transmission scheme. 8. It has multicasting and any casting message transmission scheme.
9. Here, packet flow identification is not available. 9. Flow label field in the header section is used for the identification of packet flow.
10. Here, sender and forwarding routers are responsible for the fragmentation. 10. Here, only sender is responsible for the fragmentation.
11. Here, checksum field is avaible for error detection. 11. Here, checksum field is not needed because the checksum is provided through the upper layer Protocol.
12. Here, end-to-end connection flexibility is not possible. 12. Here, end-to-end connection flexibility is possible.
13. Manual and DHCD configuration is supported by the IPV4 address. 13. Auto configuration and renumbering is supported by the IPV6 address.
14. IPV4 Header length is 20-60 bytes. 14. IPV6 Header length is fixed by 40 bytes.
15. In classful feature, it has 5 different classes A,B,C,D,E. 15. It allows to store unlimited number of IP address with no classful features.
16. VLSM (Virtual Length subnet Mask)is supported by IPV4. 16. VLSM (Virtual Length subnet Mask) is not supported by IPV6.
17. RTP (Routing Information Protocol) supports IPV4. 17. RTP (Routing Information Protocol) does not provide support to IPV6.
18. NAT (Network Address Translation)is featured here to set large set of addresses internally and one set of address externally and through this end-to-end integrity can be achieved. 18. IPV6 does not need NAT and it support direct addressing because it has huge address space.
19. ARP (Address Resolution Protocol)is used to map to MAC address. 19. NDP (Neighbour Discovery Protocol)is used to map MAC address.
20. Local Subnet Group management is done by internet group management protocol (IGMP). 20. Local Subnet Group management is done by listener discovery (MLD).
21. IPV4 has optional fields. 21. Optional fields are implemented as extention headers in IPV6.
22. Time to live (TTL)is present is IPV4. 22. TTL is replaced and called by hoplinit in IPV6.
23. Protocol field is present here. 23. Protocol field is replaced by the next headen field in IPV6.
24. System Management is done by SNMP in IPV4. 24. SNMP does not provide support to IPV6.
25. Broadcasting and multicasting available in IPV4. 25. No Broadcasting is available but multicasting is available in IPV6.


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Contributed By: Romana Rahman Ema