Evaluating the performance of the post-quantum cryptographic algorithms in the modern network protocols: latency, throughput and security trade-offs

Abstract

Public-key cryptosystems are used in widely adopted protocols for networks, including Transport Layer Security (TLS) and QUIC, and their security is now threatened by the prospect of large-scale quantum computers. In response, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has published several standardized post-quantum cryptographic (PQC) algorithms, such as Module-Lattice-Based Key-Encapsulation Mechanism (ML-KEM, formerly CRYSTALS-Kyber) and Module-Lattice-Based Digital Signature Algorithm (ML-DSA, formerly CRYSTALS-Dilithium). This paper brings together recent empirical investigations of these algorithms applied to modern network protocols, highlighting their latency, throughput and security trade-offs. The analysis is based on controlled lab studies and heterogeneous platform benchmarks conducted since 2023 up to 2026, illustrating that lattice-based schemes, especially ML-KEM and ML-DSA, add a small amount of computational cost on server-class machines and hybrid schemes (classical–post-quantum) also help reduce the transition risks. However, size of the key and the signature do have a significant impact on handshake latency in the presence of high round-trip-time network conditions, lossy networks, or bandwidth-constrained networks since they lead to higher numbers of packets and increased interaction with congestion-control mechanisms. The overhead for PQC is absorbed well by QUIC, as compared with TLS over TCP. They show that most Internet-scale applications can be deployed without significant performance overheads, and that careful algorithm selection, hybrid modes, and protocol-level optimizations can allow for such applications to be quantum-resistant. Security levels and practical considerations for the multi-year migration period are discussed and recommendations are given to practitioners on balancing security levels against operational considerations.