UDP是完美的VoIP地址，其中数据包必须发送不考虑其可靠性… 视频聊天是UDP的一个例子(你可以在任何视频聊天期间通过wireshark网络捕获来检查它)。 而且TCP不能与DNS和SNMP协议一起使用。 UDP没有任何开销，而TCP有很多开销

UDP can be used when an app cares more about "real-time" data instead of exact data replication. For example, VOIP can use UDP and the app will worry about re-ordering packets, but in the end VOIP doesn't need every single packet, but more importantly needs a continuous flow of many of them. Maybe you here a "glitch" in the voice quality, but the main purpose is that you get the message and not that it is recreated perfectly on the other side. UDP is also used in situations where the expense of creating a connection and syncing with TCP outweighs the payload. DNS queries are a perfect example. One packet out, one packet back, per query. If using TCP this would be much more intensive. If you dont' get the DNS response back, you just retry.

在某些情况下，如果丢失一些数据不会完全破坏正在传输的数据，则应该使用UDP而不是TCP。它的很多应用都是在实时应用中，比如游戏(例如FPS，你不需要知道每个玩家在特定时间的位置，如果你丢失了一些数据包，新的数据会正确地告诉你玩家在哪里)，以及实时视频流(一个损坏的帧不会破坏观看体验)。

当TCP可以工作时，我有点不情愿建议使用UDP。问题是，如果TCP由于某种原因不能工作，因为连接太延迟或拥塞，将应用程序更改为使用UDP不太可能有帮助。一个坏的连接对UDP也不好。TCP在减少拥塞方面已经做得很好了。

我能想到的唯一需要UDP的情况是广播协议。在应用程序涉及两个已知主机的情况下，UDP可能只会提供边际的性能优势，而代码复杂性的成本则会大幅增加。

UDP具有较低的开销，如前所述，它对视频和音频等流媒体很好，最好只是丢失一个数据包，然后尝试重新发送和追赶。

TCP传输没有保证，你只是被告知套接字是否断开，或者数据是否没有到达。否则它会在到达目的地的时候到达目的地。

A big thing that people forget is that udp is packet based, and tcp is bytestream based, there is no guarantee that the "tcp packet" you sent is the packet that shows up on the other end, it can be dissected into as many packets as the routers and stacks desire. So your software has the additional overhead of parsing bytes back into usable chunks of data, that can take a fair amount of overhead. UDP can be out of order so you have to number your packets or use some other mechanism to re-order them if you care to do so. But if you get that udp packet it arrives with all the same bytes in the same order as it left, no changes. So the term udp packet makes sense but tcp packet doesnt necessarily. TCP has its own re-try and ordering mechanism that is hidden from your application, you can re-invent that with UDP to tailor it to your needs.

UDP更容易在两端编写代码，基本上是因为你不需要建立和维护点到点连接。我的问题是在什么情况下你需要TCP开销?如果你走捷径，比如假设接收到的tcp“数据包”是发送的完整数据包，你会更好吗?(如果你费心检查长度/内容，你可能会扔掉两个包)

请参阅Steven的Unix网络编程的22.4节，“何时使用UDP而不是TCP”。

另外，请参阅关于UDP总是比TCP更快的误解的其他SO回答。

史蒂文的话可以总结如下:

使用UDP广播和组播，因为这是你唯一的选择(任何新的应用程序使用组播) 你可以在简单的请求/回复应用中使用UDP，但你需要构建自己的ack、超时和重传 不要使用UDP进行批量数据传输。