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What is a Shared IP?

A shared IP is an IP address that’s used by multiple users, devices, or websites at the same time rather than being assigned to just one.

Most shared IP setups rely on a networking technique called Network Address Translation (NAT). Your device has a private IP inside of a local network. Your router or server has a public IP. NAT maps many private IPs (from many devices, say) to one public IP. As a result, when traffic goes out, it appears to come from the same IP.

What are common examples of sharing IPs? Shared IPs are common with web hosting solutions, when many websites live on one server and all share the same IP. Home and office networks also share one public IP while having many devices connected at the same time. When many users connect to a VPN server, they all appear to have the same IP externally.

Why do shared IPs exist? Sharing IP addresses has become essential due to IPv4 exhaustion. There simply aren’t enough IPv4 addresses for every device to have its own dedicated IP.