Guides/Public vs private IP addresses
Public vs private IP addresses
Most home and mobile devices use two kinds of IP addresses at once: a private address on your local network, and a public address that the rest of the internet sees. Mixing them up is one of the most common sources of confusion when people ask “what is my IP?”
What a private IP is for
Private (local) IP addresses are assigned inside your home, office, or mobile hotspot—examples include 192.168.x.x, 10.x.x.x, and some 172.16–172.31 ranges. Your router uses them so laptops, phones, and smart devices can talk to each other without each device needing a unique address on the public internet.
Private addresses are not meant to be reachable from random websites. That is why a “local IP” tool often needs WebRTC or router admin pages: the public internet never sees those numbers.
What a public IP is for
Your public IP is assigned by your internet service provider (ISP). When you open a website, the site’s servers see that public address (or the exit address of a VPN/proxy). It is the identifier used for routing replies back to your network, and it is what getwhatismy.com reports on the home and IP tools.
Many households share one public IPv4 address through NAT: every device has its own private IP, but they appear as a single public address to the outside world.
Why the distinction matters
Security guides, gaming port-forwarding, and remote-access setup all depend on knowing which address you are looking at. Whitelisting a private IP on a cloud firewall will not work. Sharing your public IP can reveal approximate location and ISP details—useful for troubleshooting, but worth treating carefully.
If you need both views, use the public IP tools for what websites see, and the local IP tool for what your LAN uses.