# TCP vs. UDP

**URL:** <https://community.wowza.com/t/tcp-vs-udp/38951>\
**Category:** Wowza Streaming Engine\
**Created:** [March 25, 2014, 3:09pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/tcp-vs-udp/38951 "2014-03-25T15:09:38Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![Chris\_Mcdonald](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/ac8455/32.png) [@Chris\_Mcdonald](https://community.wowza.com/u/Chris_Mcdonald)\
**Post date:** [March 25, 2014, 3:09pm UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/tcp-vs-udp/38951/1 "2014-03-25T15:09:38Z")

</div>

Hello, in the GoCoder instructions it says “Set Transport to TCP if you intend to encode a stream for a lengthy period of time” and goes on to explain the latency issues. What is considered a “lengthy period of time”?

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![sal\_jefferson](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/6de8d8/32.png) [@sal\_jefferson](https://community.wowza.com/u/sal_jefferson)\
**Post date:** [March 26, 2014, 7:54am UTC](https://community.wowza.com/t/tcp-vs-udp/38951/2 "2014-03-26T07:54:55Z")

</div>

Hi there, UDP is the fire and forget protocol, there is no error checking. TCP connections are more stable. On a VLAN with great network stability UDP will work well, but otherwise TCP might be better.

There is not specific time. Short time over less stable network might be okay for UDP.

Salvadore