Difference Between Process and Thread (with Comparison Chart)

Jul 30, 2022 · 5 min read ·

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process vs thread The Process and Thread are the essentially associated. The process is an execution of a program whereas thread is an execution of a program driven by the environment of a process.

Another major point which differentiates process and thread is that processes are isolated with each other whereas threads share memory or resources with each other.

Content: Process Vs Thread

Comparison Chart

Basis for comparison	Process	Thread
Basic	Program in execution.	Lightweight process or part of it.
Memory sharing	Completely isolated and do not share memory.	Shares memory with each other.
Resource consumption	More	Less
Efficiency	Less efficient as compared to the process in the context of communication.	Enhances efficiency in the context of communication.
Time required for creation	More	Less
Context switching time	Takes more time.	Consumes less time.
Uncertain termination	Results in loss of process.	A thread can be reclaimed.
Time required for termination	More	Less

Definition of Process

The process is the execution of a program and performs the relevant actions specified in a program, or it is an execution unit where a program runs. The operating system creates, schedules and terminates the processes for the use of the CPU. The other processes created by the main process are known as child process.

A process operations are controlled with the help of PCB(Process control Block) can be considered as the brain of the process, which contains all the crucial information regarding to a process such as a process id, priority, state, PWS and contents CPU register.

PCB is also a kernel-based data structure which uses the three kinds of functions which are scheduling, dispatching and context save.

Scheduling: It is a method of selecting the sequence of the process in simple words chooses the process which has to be executed first in the CPU.
Dispatching: It sets up an environment for the process to be executed.
Context save: This function saves the information regarding to a process when it gets resumed or blocked.

There are certain states included in a process lifecycle such as ready, running, blocked and terminated. Process States are used for keeping the track of the process activity at an instant.

From the programmer’s point of view, processes are the medium to achieve the concurrent execution of a program. The chief process of a concurrent program creates a child process. The main process and child process need to interact with each to achieve a common goal.

Interleaving operations of processes enhance the computation speed when i/o operation in one process overlaps with a computational activity in another process.

Properties of a Process

Creation of each process includes system calls for each process separately.
A process is an isolated execution entity and does not share data and information.
Processes use IPC (Inter-process communication) mechanism for communication which significantly increases the number of system calls.
Process management consumes more system calls.
Each process has its own stack and heap memory, instruction, data and memory map.

Definition of Thread

The thread is a program execution that uses process resources for accomplishing the task. All threads within a single program are logically contained within a process. The kernel allocates a stack and a thread control block (TCB) to each thread. The operating system saves only the stack pointer and CPU state at the time of switching between the threads of the same process.

Threads are implemented in three different ways; these are kernel-level threads, user-level threads, hybrid threads. Threads can have three states running, ready and blocked; it only includes computational state not resource allocation and communication state which reduces the switching overhead. It enhances the concurrency (parallelism) hence speed also increases.

Multithreading also comes with demerits, Multiple threads doesn’t create complexity, but the interaction between them does.

A thread must have priority property when there are multiple threads are active. The time it gets for execution respective to other active threads in the same process is specified by the priority of the thread.

Properties of a Thread

Only one system call can create more than one thread (Lightweight process).
Threads share data and information.
Threads shares instruction, global and heap regions but has its own individual stack and registers.
Thread management consumes no or fewer system calls as the communication between threads can be achieved using shared memory.
The isolation property of the process increases its overhead in terms of resource consumption.

Key Differences Between Process and Thread

All threads of a program are logically contained within a process.

A process is heavy weighted, but a thread is light weighted.

A program is an isolated execution unit whereas thread is not isolated and shares memory.

A thread cannot have an individual existence; it is attached to a process. On the other hand, a process can exist individually.

At the time of expiration of a thread, its associated stack could be recovered as every thread has its own stack. In contrast, if a process dies, all threads die including the process.

Conclusion

Processes are used to achieve execution of programs in concurrent and sequential manner. While a thread is a program execution unit which uses the environment of the process when many threads use the environment of the same process they need to share its code, data and resources. The operating system uses this fact to reduce the overhead and improve computation.

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