59.14. UNIX Versus Internet Domain Sockets

When writing applications that communicate over a network, we must necessarily use Internet domain sockets. However, when using sockets to communicate between applications on the same system, we have the choice of using either Internet or UNIX domain sockets. In the case, which domain should we use and why?

Writing an application using just Internet domain sockets is often the simplest approach, since it will work on both a single host and across a network. However, there are some reasons why we may choose to use UNIX domain sockets: