IELTS vs TOEFL: choose by destination and test-day temperament, not hype

For university admission the honest starting point is: most institutions accept both, and neither test is "easier" in any general sense. The choice turns on three practical axes — where you're applying, which task formats suit you, and how you feel about speaking to a human versus a microphone.

Where each is safer

• IELTS is the default for the UK, Australia, New Zealand and Canadian immigration (the CLB conversions are IELTS-native; UKVI routes need IELTS/other SELTs — TOEFL is not on the UK's SELT list). For immigration specifically, IELTS (or PTE) is usually the safer instrument; TOEFL's acceptance is patchier.
• TOEFL grew up with US admissions, and remains ubiquitous there — but US universities overwhelmingly accept IELTS too, usually asking 6.5–7.0 against TOEFL 90–100 (typical bands by programme level, and the waiver routes). Genuine TOEFL-only holdouts are now rare; check the department page, not folklore.
• Professional registration bodies (nursing, medicine, teaching) each publish their own accepted-test list — that list, not preference, decides.

The format differences that actually matter

• Speaking: person vs microphone. IELTS is a 11–14-minute conversation with a live examiner; TOEFL has you answer prompts into a mic while a room of other candidates does the same. Candidates who draw energy from a human interlocutor — who can ask for a question to be repeated, who read nods — do better on IELTS; candidates who freeze under examiner eye contact but talk happily to a phone do better on TOEFL. This is the single biggest temperament question, and you already know your answer.
• Writing: IELTS Task 1 (Academic) describes a chart or diagram; TOEFL's integrated task has you summarise a lecture against a reading — closer to real coursework, but it makes your Writing score partly a listening test. A weak listener loses writing marks on TOEFL in a way IELTS never charges.
• Reading: TOEFL is entirely multiple-choice; IELTS mixes in gap-fills, matching and True/False/Not Given, where answers must be produced (and spelled) rather than recognised. Strong guessers with weak spelling lean TOEFL; precise readers annoyed by four-option traps lean IELTS.
• Length and delivery: the current TOEFL iBT runs under two hours, fully computer-based; IELTS runs about 2h45 plus the separate speaking appointment, on paper or computer. IELTS's One Skill Retake (computer-based sittings) lets you resit a single skill within 60 days — TOEFL's MyBest scores instead combine your best sections across sittings, which some universities accept and others explicitly don't.

Scores, roughly aligned

Official concordances put IELTS 6.5 ≈ TOEFL 79–93 and IELTS 7.0 ≈ 94–101. The bands are coarser than TOEFL's 0–120 points, which cuts both ways: a bad day costs you a visible half band on IELTS, while TOEFL's granularity lets a near-miss still print a usable number — but institutions set TOEFL cutoffs with the same precision, so the practical difference is small.