Both protocols are used for uploads and downloads on the internet, for text and for binary, both over TCP/IP. But there are a lot of differences in the details:
Transfer Speed
Possibly the most common question: which is faster for transfers?
Given all details on this page. What makes FTP faster:
- No added meta-data in the sent files, just the raw binary
- Never chunked encoding “overhead”
What makes HTTP faster:
- reusing existing persistent connections make better TCP performance
- pipelining makes asking for multiple files from the same server faster
- (automatic) compression makes less data get sent
- no command/response flow minimizes extra round-trips
Ultimately the net outcome of course differ depending on specific details, but I would say that for single-shot static files, you won’t be able to measure a difference. For a single shot small file, you might get it faster with FTP (unless the server is at a long round-trip distance). When getting multiple files, HTTP should be the faster one.
