The real-time data flow may be incorrect or not transmitted during large data flows. If traffic needs to be forwarded to multiple clients at the same time, the server must copy the data stream and forward it to each client. This transmission is provided by TCP and UDP protocols.
The protocol that controls data transfer is called Transmission Control Protocol (TCP). After the connection is established, it starts the data transfer and when the transfer process is completed, it terminates the connection by closing the established virtual circuit. Extensive errors are easily found thanks to the error-checking feature of TCP. During peak network periods, transmission is delayed and unsent data is retransmitted. In short, TCP checks whether the data has reached the destination where it should be sent. It notifies with feedback whether data is transferred or not. The data transmission of the internet's most popular protocols such as HTTP, HTTPS, POP3, SSH and FTP is done by TCP.
It collectively transmits the data to the other party without establishing a connection. It is used in real-time data transfer such as voice and video transmission in wide area networks (WAN). In addition, UDP is more preferred for games. UDP is an untrusted and generally not preferred protocol because it only transmits data according to the speed of the data generated by the application, the capability of the computer and the transmission bandwidth limit. UDP doesn’t think that every packet needs to reach the receiving end, so the network load is smaller than TCP. At the same time, the transmission speed is faster than TCP, but the congested the network the more risk it loses the packet sent. So what are the other differences between TCP and UDP?
TCP vs UDP
While TCP is a connection-oriented protocol, UDP is connectionless. Datagram sockets only establish a connection when sending data and terminate the connection when finished.
TCP's speed is slower. UDP is faster as no error recovery has been attempted.
TCP checks for errors and also performs error recovery. UDP checks for errors, but does not stop the transmission of bad packets.
TCP rearranges and transfers data packets in a certain order. The UDP protocol does not have a fixed order because all packets are independent of each other.
UDP is light since it doesn’t have features such as tracking links and message ordering. One of the most important features of using UDP is low protocol load. TCP, on the other hand, is heavy due to its bandwidth intensity.
It is very important to transfer objects quickly and securely. But first, you must choose which protocol you need to send according to the characteristics of the data. Knowing the differences between stream socket and datagram socket can make your work easier in object transfer.