Seen from their industry names, QSFP56, QSFP28 and QSFP+ are very similar in that they share the same QSFP form factor as their postfix shows, and they have the same size as each other. However, their data center and connectivity capabilities are different. Below is a table listing the basic parameters of QSFP56, QSFP28, and QSFP+.
| Industry name | Year | Abbreviated for | Number of Electric Lanes | Number of Optical Lanes | Bit Rate/Lane | Modulation | Line Rates |
| QSFP+ | 2013 | Quad Small Form-factor Pluggable Plus | 4 | 4 | 10Gbps | NRZ | 40G |
| QSFP28 | 2016 | Quad Small Form-factor Pluggable 28 | 4 | 4 | 25Gbps | NRZ | 100G |
| QSFP56 | 2017 | Quad 50 Gigabits Small Form-factor Pluggable | 4 | 4 | 50Gbps | PAM4 | 200G |
From the comparison chart, it can be distinctly seen that compared with QSFP+ and QSFP28, the QSFP56 form factor performs a higher network speed as 200G QSFP supporting 4×50G channels. While QSFP+ is an evolution of QSFP to support 4×10G channels carrying 10G Ethernet, 10G fiber channel or QDR InfiniBand. It introduced the concept of multiplexing four lanes to increase the bandwidth, capable of handling 40Gbps line rates at 10GBaud NRZ per lane. QSFP28 supports 4×25G channels and contains 4-lane optical transmitter and 4-lane optical receiver as QSFP+ does.
The most significant change from QSFP+ and QSFP28 to QSFP56 is that QSFP56 made the change from NRZ encoding to PAM4 encoding. Though QSFP56 still uses 4 lanes as QSFP28, the modulation is doubled to 50G per channel, which enables more data on existing fiber, accordingly, more suitable for hyper-scale data center networks.
Shift from QSFP56 to QSFP56-DD (400G QSFP-DD)
With data centers undergoing rapid growth, the rising demand for data volume is pushing network components to support higher bandwidth and higher density. The latest iteration of optical module form factor is from QSFP56 to QSFP56-DD, which is also called 400G QSFP-DD. DD here refers to double density, representing reaching 400G (with 50G PAM4) by doubling data lanes of QSFP56, from 4 lanes to 8 lanes.
Though QSFP56-DD has the double density, its size is similar to QSFP56. 400G QSFP56-DD port is backward compatible with the QSFP transceiver which means as long as the switch supports, QSFP56 can work on the QSFP56-DD port. When using a QSFP56 module in an QSFP56-DD port, this port will be configured for a data rate of 200G, instead of 400G.
The QSFP56-DD form factor is now recognized by the 400G market as the 400G form factor that gets the most concern. Despite that nowadays 400G Ethernet is seen as a futureproofing solution for the next-generation data center, there is still a need for 200G QSFP56 for some organizations deploying 200G Ethernet.
