TCP vs UDP: How to Pick the Right Transport Protocol for Your App
TCP and UDP are the two primary transport-layer protocols used on the internet, each designed for different application needs. TCP prioritises reliability through mechanisms like the three-way handshake, acknowledgements, flow control, and congestion control, making it ideal for file downloads, database backups, and financial transactions. UDP, by contrast, skips all handshaking and retransmission, trading accuracy for speed, which suits real-time use cases such as video calls, online gaming, live streaming, and DNS lookups. The core trade-off is latency versus data integrity: TCP guarantees every byte arrives correctly and in order, while UDP simply sends packets and moves on regardless of loss. Applications with strict real-time requirements favour UDP because a delayed packet is often worse than a missing one, whereas any scenario where a single lost byte causes corruption demands TCP.
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