It is important to understand that any TCP packet that is routed over a network requires bi-directional support. This means that even though I may have a route on my router to your network, if you don’t have a route back to me, the transmission of packets will fail.

OSPF (Open Shortest Path First) is an industry open standard supported by almost every router on the planet.   OSPF is a classless routing protocol so subnetmask values are sent in the update and it supports CIDR. OSPF does not send periodic updates and is designed to only send updates when

EIGRP (Enhanced Inter-Gateway Routing Protocol) is one of the fastest most reliable routing protocols available today, but it’s drawback is that it’s a Cisco proprietary protocol which means you either need a network that is running 100% Cisco, or have devices that support EIGRP in your network.   EIGRP