Question

If I am sending messages from one android phone to another and both Android phones are connected to wifi, using sockets programming do I need to set port forwarding on my router?

Answer 1

No

if they are on the same WiFi/Network.

If the two phones are on different networks

Port Forwarding needs to be done. It is usually with a router in between.

Common Use Cases:

• You’re accessing a commonly used port on a computer which is not publicly visible. Eg: You’re hosting a webserver hence port 80 is used but you also want to use the same port on a different machine. Then you would say forward port 8080 and map it to the other computer’s port 80.
• You have a firewall/proxy which allows communication on only a few port ranges.