| Properties | Bacteria | Cyanobacteria |
|---|---|---|
| magnitude | 0.25μm – 5μm | 1μm |
| Cellular organization | Unicellular or colony forming | Most are unicellular. But some are linked to form filaments |
| Nutrition | Photoautotrophic, Chemoautotrophic or heterotrophic | Photosynthetic |
| Photosynthesis | bacteriochlorophyll | chlorophyll a , phycocyanin .Blue-green in colour |
| Hydrogen donor | Always H2S | Always H2O |
| Flagella | May bear Flagella | Flagella always absent |
| Special structures | mesosome, Plasmid | Heterocyst |
| Spore | endogenous | No endogenous spore formation |
| Asexual reproduction | transverse binary fission | Fission in Unicellular and Fragmentation in filaments |
| Sexual reproduction | some types of bacteria exchange their genetic information in a process called genetic recombination. (E-coli) | No sexual reproduction |
| Reserve food | Glycogen, Volutin | cyanophycean |
