QUIC Protocol Heads for Linux Kernel Mainline: A Speed and Performance Trade-off

After over a decade, the QUIC protocol is finally making its way into the Linux kernel mainline. Designed to address latency, congestion, and security issues inherent in TCP on the modern internet, QUIC uses UDP for faster, more secure data transmission. However, current kernel implementations underperform in benchmarks, lagging behind TCP. Developers attribute this to a lack of hardware offload support and optimization, with future performance improvements expected. Kernel integration will pave the way for wider application support, but complete code review and merging are expected to take considerable time, potentially until 2026 at the earliest.