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Commonly confused · Routing & Switching

HSRP vs VRRP vs GLBP: What's the Difference?

All three are first hop redundancy protocols that give hosts a virtual default gateway that survives a router failure. HSRP is Cisco proprietary with active/standby routers, VRRP is the open standard with a master and backups, and GLBP is Cisco proprietary and load balances across several gateways.

HSRPVRRPGLBP
StandardCisco proprietaryOpen standard (RFC 5798)Cisco proprietary
RolesActive and StandbyMaster and BackupActive Virtual Gateway and Active Virtual Forwarders
Load balancingPer group only (multiple groups)Per group onlyBuilt in, up to 4 forwarders
Virtual IPUnique virtual IPCan be a real interface IPUnique virtual IP
Virtual MAC0000.0c07.acXX (v1)0000.5e00.01XX0007.b400.XXYY
Preemption defaultDisabledEnabledDisabled for AVG, enabled for AVF
Multicast address224.0.0.2 (v1), 224.0.0.102 (v2)224.0.0.18224.0.0.102
Remember it

HSRP is Cisco's standby, VRRP is everyone's standby, GLBP shares the load.

Exam tip

Vendor-neutral requirement points to VRRP; true load balancing from one group points to GLBP. Default preemption behavior is a frequent trick question.

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