In a network communications can be either on an equal basis, like Peer to Peer communications, or be divided into two roles, the server role and the client role. While the server provides services, the client requests to use them. While servers wait for communications partners to contact them, clients are supposed to contact the servers, initiating the communication. Very often games are also referred to as clients, if they connect to game servers or lobby servers.

The term »client« can be applied to both, hard- and software. A web browser (e.g. Mozilla Firefox) for example is a client for browsing websites offered by web servers (e.g. Apache or IIS). A hardware client is mostly simply a computer, requesting things from other computers, working as servers. This role is usually not static, as one computer may serve as a server for one service (e.g. hosting a web server) while at the same time, being used as a client for another service (e.g. downloading files from another computer's FTP service).

• Peer to Peer
• Server

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