Anycast vs Unicast vs Multicast: Traffic Routing Explained

Routing strategies determine how packets travel across networks. Unicast, multicast, and anycast each serve different purposes depending on how many recipients you need to reach and how fast you need the data to arrive.

Unicast

One-to-one communication. The most common model for web traffic.

Multicast

One-to-many transmission, ideal for streaming, IPTV, and real-time updates.

Anycast

One-to-nearest routing. Popular for CDNs, DNS root servers, and DDoS mitigation due to reduced latency and high availability.

Which to use?

• Unicast: Simple, universal
• Multicast: Efficient for many receivers
• Anycast: Fast and resilient for global services