What is the difference between a goroutine and a thread in golang?
Jun 25, 2025 pm 05:56 PM
In Go, the main difference between goroutine and thread is management and overhead. 1. goroutine is managed by the Go runtime, while threads are managed by the operating system; 2. goroutine is lighter, with a small initial stack and dynamic growth, which can easily create tens of thousands of concurrent execution units; 3. Goroutine communication through channel to avoid synchronization problems caused by shared memory; 4. goroutine switching overhead is smaller, and Go scheduler automatically optimizes execution; 5. Threads are suitable for CPU-intensive tasks, while goroutine is more suitable for high concurrency scenarios.
In Go, the difference between a goroutine and a thread comes down to how they're managed and how much overhead they carry. Threads are managed by the operating system, while goroutines are managed by the Go runtime. That might sound abstract, but it has real-world implications for performance, scalability, and ease of use.
Goroutines Are Lightweight
One of the main selling points of goroutines is that they're lightweight compared to threads. A typical thread in most operating systems uses megabytes of memory for its stack, mostly because the stack size needs to be pre-allocated and grows only up to a limit.
Goroutines, on the other hand, start with a small stack (a few kilobytes) and grow dynamically as needed. The Go runtime takes care of managing this automatically, so you don't have to worry about stack overflows or wasting memory.
This means:
- You can easily run tens of thousands of goroutines without exhausting system resources.
- Goroutines are cheaper to create and destroy than threads.
- They're ideal for concurrency patterns like spawning one goroutine per incoming request.
Threads Are Managed by the OS; Goroutines by the Go Runtime
Threads are scheduled directly by the operating system. Every time you create a thread, you're asking the OS to allocate resources and manage schedule. This adds overhead, especially when dealing with large numbers of threads.
Goroutines are multiplexed onto a smaller number of OS threads by the Go scheduler. The Go runtime handles when and where each goroutine runs. This gives you more concurrency with less context-switching overhead.
Some practical consequences:
- Less switching cost between goroutines than between threads.
- The Go runtime can optimize execution based on workload.
- You don't need to manually manage thread pools or worry about oversubscription.
Communication Between Goroutines Is Easier
Go encourages a style of programming where goroutines communicate via channels rather than sharing memory. Channels provide a clean way to pass data between concurrent units safely.
With threads, shared memory is the usual communication mechanism, which often leads to complex synchronization using mutexes and condition variables—prone to bugs like deadlocks and race conditions.
So with goroutines:
- You can send values ??across goroutines using channels (
chan). - It's easier to build pipelines or worker pools.
- Built-in language support makes this pattern natural and readable.
Performance Considerations
When comparing performance, goroutines usually outshine threads due to lower overhead. Creating a new goroutine is fast—often just a few nanoseconds. And since the Go scheduler manages them efficiently, you get better throughput under high concurrency.
Threads, being heavier, take longer to start and require more memory. High numbers of threads can lead to "thread thrashing," where the OS spends more time switching between threads than doing actual work.
But keep in mind:
- For CPU-bound tasks that don't require massive concurrency, threads may perform similarly.
- Blocking operations inside a goroutine can affect performance if not handled carefully.
- The Go runtime does a good job of handling blocking calls by creating more threads underneath.
Basically that's it.
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