Threads vs. Processes: A Technical Comparison

Threads and Processes: Key Differences

Threads and processes are the two main components of a program that is executed on a computer system. These two components are related to each other, but there are several important differences between them.

Threads

• A unit that runs independently within a program
• Multiple threads can run simultaneously to make the program more efficient
• Shares the program's address space, code, data, and files
• Has its own registers and stack
• Plays an important role in making parallel processing possible, optimizing system resources, and improving program performance

Processes

• An instance of a running program
• Has an independent execution environment
• A process executed by the system has its own memory space, code, data, environment variables, and file descriptors
• A process can contain multiple threads, and these threads can run tasks in parallel within the process's address space

Differences between threads and processes

Difference	Thread	Process
Memory space	Shared	Independent
Resource sharing	Easy and efficient	Difficult
Context switching	Fast and low resource consumption	Slow and high resource consumption
Impact on termination	May affect other threads in the process	Has no effect on other processes
Parallel processing	Improves performance on multi-core processors	Limited

Conclusion

Threads and processes are different execution units, and the differences between them are manifested by several important characteristics such as memory space, resource sharing, and context switching. Threads are used to implement concurrency within a process and can contribute to improving system performance.