UDPbased

UDP-based (often written UDPbased) refers to protocols that use the User Datagram Protocol (UDP) as their transport instead of TCP. In such designs, UDP provides no built-in reliability, ordering, or congestion control; these features must be supplied by the application or by an upper-layer protocol. The result is lower latency and reduced overhead, at the cost of added complexity for implementations.

Key characteristics: UDP is connectionless and delivers independent datagrams with a small header. It does not guarantee delivery, ordering, or protection against duplication. Applications may implement sequencing, retransmission strategies, or partial reliability, and may rely on message framing and selective buffering to preserve boundaries and timing. IP fragmentation can complicate large messages sent over UDP.

Use cases: real-time media and interactive applications such as online gaming and VoIP often favor UDP-based approaches for speed. DNS uses UDP for queries, with TCP as a fallback for larger responses. QUIC is a prominent example of a UDP-based protocol that provides reliable, multiplexed connections with encryption on top of UDP.

Security and deployment: UDP offers limited security; encryption is provided by DTLS, TLS-over-UDP, or the application's own mechanisms. UDP is vulnerable to spoofing and amplification attacks, and traversal through NATs and firewalls varies. Effective UDP-based designs typically include congestion control, rate limiting, and explicit privacy measures.

Overview: UDPbased protocols trade the guarantees of TCP for lower latency and scalability, making them well suited for time-sensitive and interactive applications where reliability is handled at the application layer.