Editing UDP Protocol (section)

== 1. Key Characteristics of UDP ==

UDP is a connectionless and stateless protocol. This means that data is sent without checking if the receiver is ready or even available.

{| class="wikitable"
! Characteristic !! Description
|-
| No connection setup || UDP sends data without establishing a session (no SYN/ACK handshake)
|-
| No delivery guarantees || Packets may be lost, duplicated, or arrive out of order
|-
| No retransmissions || Lost packets are not resent
|-
| Minimal overhead || The header is only 8 bytes long
|-
| Stateless || Sender and receiver do not store any session information
|}

These traits make UDP faster and more lightweight than TCP, but also less reliable.