UDP is a newer protocol than TCP, which was created in the 1970s. UDP has some advantages over TCP that make it more attractive to application developers. For example, UDP is faster and less prone to packet loss.
There are also ways for an application developer to control the size of data packets sent over the network with UDP; this can be useful if you need your app to work well on networks with high bandwidth-delay products (BDP).
If you’re building an application and thinking about whether or not using UDP will make sense for your needs, read on below! * TCP is a more reliable protocol than UDP, because it uses the transmission control protocol (TCP) to form connections and ensure that data packets arrive. *
The downside of using TCP for your application’s networking needs is that you have less flexibility in terms of controlling how much bandwidth-delay product there can be between two endpoints on the network. * One way to help get around this limitation with TCP by using so called “windowing”, which allows an endpoint to discard transmissions when they’re not needed while still maintaining its connection over the wire. However, windowing becomes exponentially harder as latency increases; if you need your app’s response time under one millisecond, then winnowing delays become too great for any window size configuration available
