When should I use a List vs a LinkedList

c# .net vb.net data-structures linked-list
Jonathan Allen picture Jonathan Allen · Oct 4, 2008 · Viewed 228.2k times · Source

When is it better to use a List vs a LinkedList?

Answer

Marc Gravell picture Marc Gravell · Oct 4, 2008

In most cases, List<T> is more useful. LinkedList<T> will have less cost when adding/removing items in the middle of the list, whereas List<T> can only cheaply add/remove at the end of the list.

LinkedList<T> is only at it's most efficient if you are accessing sequential data (either forwards or backwards) - random access is relatively expensive since it must walk the chain each time (hence why it doesn't have an indexer). However, because a List<T> is essentially just an array (with a wrapper) random access is fine.

List<T> also offers a lot of support methods - Find, ToArray, etc; however, these are also available for LinkedList<T> with .NET 3.5/C# 3.0 via extension methods - so that is less of a factor.

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