What's the difference between streams and datagrams in network programming?

Question

What\'s the difference between sockets (stream) vs sockets (datagrams)? Why use one over the other?

Answer 1

Stream Socket:

• Dedicated & end-to-end channel between server and client.
• Use TCP protocol for data transmission.
• Reliable and Lossless.
• Data sent/received in the similar order.
• Long time for recovering lost/mistaken data

Datagram Socket:

• Not dedicated & end-to-end channel between server and client.
• Use UDP for data transmission.
• Not 100% reliable and may lose data.
• Data sent/received order might not be the same.
• Don't care or rapid recovering lost/mistaken data.