Comparison of UDP and TCP

Comparison of UDP and TCP

Transmission Control Protocol is a connection-oriented protocol, which means that it requires handshaking to set up end-to-end communications. Once a connection is set up user data may be sent bi-directionally over the connection.

• Reliable – TCP manages message acknowledgment, retransmission and timeout. Multiple attempts to deliver the message are made. If it gets lost along the way, the server will re-request the lost part. In TCP, there's either no missing data, or, in case of multiple timeouts, the connection is dropped.
• Ordered – if two messages are sent over a connection in sequence, the first message will reach the receiving application first. When data segments arrive in the wrong order, TCP buffers delay the out-of-order data until all data can be properly re-ordered and delivered to the application.
• Heavyweight – TCP requires three packets to set up a socket connection, before any user data can be sent. TCP handles reliability and congestion control.
• Streaming – Data is read as a byte stream, no distinguishing indications are transmitted to signal message (segment) boundaries.

UDP is a simpler message-based connectionless protocol. Connectionless protocols do not set up a dedicated end-to-end connection. Communication is achieved by transmitting information in one direction from source to destination without verifying the readiness or state of the receiver.

However, one primary benefit of UDP over TCP is the application to voice over internet protocol (VoIP) where latency and jitter are the primary concerns. It is assumed in VoIP UDP that the end users provide any necessary real time confirmation that the message has been received.

• Unreliable – When a message is sent, it cannot be known if it will reach its destination; it could get lost along the way. There is no concept of acknowledgment, retransmission, or timeout.
• Not ordered – If two messages are sent to the same recipient, the order in which they arrive cannot be predicted.
• Lightweight – There is no ordering of messages, no tracking connections, etc. It is a small transport layer designed on top of IP.
• Datagrams – Packets are sent individually and are checked for integrity only if they arrive. Packets have definite boundaries which are honored upon receipt, meaning a read operation at the receiver socket will yield an entire message as it was originally sent.
• No congestion control – UDP itself does not avoid congestion, and it's possible for high bandwidth applications to trigger congestion collapse, unless they implement congestion control measures at the application level.