Today is the world of new technologies, machines, new technical aspects, etc. Previously we used to write a letter to communicate with each other. Now we have become so advanced that you can even see people, talk to them, share, etc. from wherever you are. This is done through different devices such as mobile phones, computer systems, tablets, etc. Different sources like Computers, mobile phones, sites, etc. allow you to get connected all around the world. Connections are used for communication, work, imports, and exports, etc. You can communicate with anyone in this world, a just click away. All of this is done on the Network. On the network, you can pass messages, data, share files, have video conferences, etc. All of these devices get connected to each other using cables, or wireless network, or signals, etc. So there are two ways of Internet Protocol when these messages are transferred from the source to the destination. They are User Datagram Protocol, i.e., UDP and Transmission Control Protocol, i.e., TCP
In TCP, data can be sent in both directions, once the connection is made. Hence, it is called connection oriented. In UDP, multiple messages are sent in the chunks of packets. It is connection less Internet Protocol and is very simple to implement.
Let us check some of its differences and similarities.
- UDP can also be called as Universal Datagram Protocol.
- As TCP is connection based, the message is sent from a computer to other across the Internet, whereas in UDP, lots of packets of messages can be sent to the destination, but that is the end of the transmission as it doesn’t send back. Hence, it is connectionless Protocol.
- Though both of them have different functions along with the disadvantages, you need to be specific where to use which Protocol. For suppose, in a situation where applications need message reliability and have very less time to send the packet, it is the best choice to use TCP. UDP can be used in games where there is a need for efficient and fast transmission of messages. As UDP is stateless, it is helpful for the servers which are used to solve the queries and complaints by the clients.
- These Protocols are standard so that they can be used by other Protocols also. It includes using of their functionalities. UDP is used by RIP, DHCP, DNS, SNMP, VOIP, TFTP whereas TCP is used by SMTP, FTP, HTTP, Telnet, HTTPs.
- Both of them have different speeds of transfer. The speed of TCP is a bit slower when compared to that of UDP as UDP doesn’t follow any error checking Protocols on its packets.
- TCP has a header size of 20 bytes whereas UDP has that of 8 bytes.
- UDP is not as reliable as TCP. TCP makes sure that the transferred messages are sent in the same order they were arranged. UDP doesn’t guarantee the transfer of packets to the destination. Hence, TCP must be used for critical and important message transferring.
