Both IELTS and PTE have two common versions: Academic and General Training and PTE has one additional version "Young Learners Test".
The Academic versions are meant for students planning for an admission into a university, whereas for non-academic purposes, the General versions of IELTS and PTE certify one’s realistic communication skills. The Young Learner test of PTE measures the English language communication abilities of children.
Test Content and Structure
IELTS and PTE have similar test sections of Reading, Listening, Speaking and Writing. However, there are certain unique features in content pattern which differentiates apart from each other.
An IELTS examiner evaluates the speaking abilities of the candidates by making live conversation, which indeed is recorded in some recording device. But in PTE, there is no live conversation and candidate has to speak to a microphone for getting recorded in a computerized system. A computer program than evaluates the speaking and rates the test taker. The IELTS being completely paper based uses diagram, graph or chart for the writing section. On the other hand, PTE is totally computer based and thus uses many innovative techniques to test writing capabilities of the candidate.
Scoring Pattern and Results
PTE is based on complete automated scoring and grades a test taker in the band of 10-90. A 0-9 band is used in the manual scoring pattern of IELTS.
You can test some short PTE Reading test online at this link: http://mini-ielts.com/reading?c=pte