TCP vs UDP: When to Use What, and How TCP Relates to HTTP

Today we are going to learn about TCP/IP and UDP protocols, what are their differences and how they relate with the HTTP protocol. We will keep the discussion simple, beginner friendly, and to the point.

TCP/IP Protocol

TCP/IP, or more commonly called TCP protocol, stands for Transmission Control Protocol. It is generally known as a reliable and safe protocol compared to the other one. When we want data to reach safely, securely, and without any data loss, TCP is usually the preferred choice.

Key advantages:

• Reliability: TCP gives a guarantee that the data we send is the same data that reaches the destination. No matter what, it makes sure the data is delivered with proper accuracy and integrity.

• Connectivity: TCP first sets up a proper connection before sending any data. This helps ensure the data transfer happens safely, accurately, and in a complete manner.UDP protocol.

UDP Protocol

UDP stands for User Datagram Protocol. UDP usually does not care much about data loss, integrity, or security of the data. It simply sends the data to the destination as fast as possible, even at the expense of security and possible data loss.

This protocol is generally used when speed of communication matters more than reliability, and losing some data is acceptable.

Key Advantages:

• Fast: The most notable point of UDP is it’s speed, once it know where the destination is it just sends data there no confirmation or order maintaining like TCP.

• Low latency : UDP being the faster one between the two protocol it is often preferred in low latency system where every millisecond matters e.g. specific parts of Fast trading systems or any live streaming systems.

Relationship between TCP and HTTP

We may think TCP and HTTP are both used for communication between a sender and a receiver, but they actually sit on different layers of the whole networking process.

According to the OSI (Open Systems Interconnection) model of network communication, HTTP works at the topmost, or seventh layer, known as the Application layer. HTTP requests are part of the application logic and define how data is requested and responded to between client and server.

Whereas TCP and UDP both sit at the fourth layer, or the Transport layer, which is much lower level. They are mainly concerned with moving data in packets or chunks from source to destination.

The HTTP protocol defines how two systems communicate at the application layer, while TCP and UDP define how that communication actually happens at the transport layer. Both handle communication at different levels and focus on different concerns. Usually, a developer is mostly concerned with the application layer of the overall process.

Conclusion

Both TCP and UDP have their own use cases, and neither is better than the other. They are widely used depending on the needs of the communication. If we want integrity, accuracy, and safety at the expense of speed, TCP is the better choice. If speed matters more than anything else, then UDP is preferred.

Hopefully, this helped us understand what these two protocols do and how they relate to and differ from each other and HTTP.