Difference between virtual, floating, and reserved IP addresses

Gcore Cloud provides several IP address types in addition to the public IP automatically assigned to a Virtual Machine (VM). Each type serves a different purpose depending on networking and availability requirements.

Comparison

	Floating IP	Reserved IP	Virtual IP
What it is	Public IP mapped to a private IP using network address translation (DNAT)	Pre-allocated IP reserved in a regional pool, not assigned to a compute instance	A Reserved IP shared across multiple VMs
Assigned to	VMs, Bare Metal, Load Balancers (private interfaces)	VMs, Bare Metal, Load Balancers	Multiple VMs
Subnet	Public (via DNAT)	Public or private	Public or private
Failover	No, but can be reassigned via API or Customer Portal	No (manual reassignment)	Yes (shared ownership enables failover)
Requires private network	Yes	No	No
Billed when unassigned	No, it exists only when assigned	Yes	Yes
Bare Metal support	Yes	Yes	No

How to choose

If a VM has a public interface and requires external access, no additional configuration is needed. The platform assigns one public IP per VM.

If a VM runs in a private subnet and requires external access, use a floating IP. It maps a public IP to the private IP without changing the VM configuration.

If an IP address must remain available for later use or reassignment, use a reserved IP. It stays allocated until released.

If multiple VMs must share the same IP for high availability, use a virtual IP. A failover mechanism such as Keepalived controls which node is active.

If additional public IPs are required on a VM, attach floating IPs. For Bare Metal servers, contact support.

Notes on public IP assignment

All Gcore Cloud IP addresses are native and correspond to the physical location of the deployed resource. This minimizes latency and optimizes routing.

Public IPs are allocated from a shared regional pool and remain assigned for the lifetime of the network interface. If the interface is deleted, the IP is released and a new one is assigned. To retain an IP address, convert it to a reserved IP before deleting the interface.

Related articles

• Create and configure a floating IP address
• Create and configure a virtual IP address
• Create and configure a reserved IP address