What Is the Difference Between IPv4 and IPv6 Addresses?

Internet Protocol (IP) Addresses are numeric and sometimes hexadecimal identifiers used for internet based communication.  Each device within a network is assigned a unique identifier by way of IP address. 

There are two common forms of IP addresses: IPv4 and IPv6. IPv4 formatted IP addresses allows for a maximum of 4,294,967,296 unique addresses in the public internet space. As the internet grew, a new system with a higher maximum number of IP addresses was needed. That is when IPv6 was added with its 3.4×10³⁸ unique addresses. 

IPv4 addresses contain numbers only and use decimal points as delimiters. Example below.

192.168.1.100

IPv6 addresses use hexadecimal digits (0-9; A-F) and use a colon as the delimiter. Example below.

2001:0db8:85a3:0000:0000:8a2e:0370:7334

It is common for modern network engineers to leverage both address types in an IPv6, future-proofed setup.