To implement TCP/IP connections, the java.net package provides two classes, ServerSocket and Socket. A ServerSocket represents a listening socket that waits for connection requests from clients. S ServerSocket does not itself participate in connections it just listens for connections request and creates Sockets to handle the actual connection.
A Socket represents one endpoint of an actual network connection. A socket can be a client socket that sends a connection request to a server.
The difference between handling Socket and ServerSocket is:
- ServerSocket is implemented on the server-side so that it can listen to the client’s requests and respond to them. While a socket is implemented at the client-side to send requests to the port of the machine where ServerSocket is listening.
- The socket class is used for the client side whereas ServerSocket is used for the server side.
