Unicasting vs Multicasting

Difference Between Unicasting and Multicasting:

 

In Computer Networks, the term unicast and multicast are the information transmission methods. In unicast, one station transfers the information to only one receiver station. In multicast, the sender transfers the information to a group of interested receiver stations. The fundamental difference between unicast and multicast is that unicast is a one-to-one communication and multicast is a one-to-many communication process.

Basis for Comparison	Unicast	Multicast
Basic	One sender and one receiver.	One sender and multiple receivers.
Bandwidth	Multiple unicasting utilizes more bandwidth as compared to multicast.	Multicasting utilizes bandwidth efficiently.
Scale	It does not scale well for streaming media.	It does not scale well across large networks.
Mapping	One-to-one.	One-to-many.
Examples	Web surfing, file transfer.	Multimedia delivery, stock exchange.

Conclusion: 

If some private or unique information is being shared between two stations, a unicast method must be used. When the same information is to be shared with multiple stations, the multicast method must be used.