By c-emmons -

Hubs, switches, and routers all do the same thing in allowing you to connect one computer to another computer or network.  They each have at least two connections that are known as ports into which you plug cables to make a connection.   So what’s the difference between them?

The hub is historically the cheapest and least intelligent.  It also lacks the complication that switches and routers may possess.  Its job is to send out anything that comes into its port.    Every computer that is connected to a hub can see anything on the computers that are connected to that same hub.  Hubs are a simple and fast way to connect computers in a smaller network.

A switch does mainly the same functions of a hub.  The difference? Efficiency.  A switch is able to determine that if the traffic from a certain machine is coming from the same port it is connected there and it will send the traffic back to the machine only through that port it is connected to.   This is  beneficial over a hub because that traffic will only go where it needs to go and not to every single port its connected to.  When networks are busy, a switch can be much more time efficient than a hub as well.

We saved the best for last.  A router is the most complicated of the three yet it is hands down the “smartest”.  In fact, the Internet itself is driven by a router.  A router is a computer that has the capabilities to not only understand the data is it processing but to manipulate it, meaning that it can be configured to how it will treat traffic.  Communication between routers is enabled in order to figure out the best way to get the network traffic from one point to another.