  The semiclassical approach introduced by Sachdev and collaborators proved to
be extremely successful in the study of quantum quenches in massive field
theories, both in homogeneous and inhomogeneous settings. While conceptually
very simple, this method allows one to obtain analytic predictions for several
observables when the density of excitations produced by the quench is small. At
the same time, a novel generalized hydrodynamic (GHD) approach, which captures
exactly many asymptotic features of the integrable dynamics, has recently been
introduced. Interestingly, also this theory has a natural interpretation in
terms of semiclassical particles and it is then natural to compare the two
approaches. This is the objective of this work: we carry out a systematic
comparison between the two methods in the prototypical example of the
sine-Gordon field theory. In particular, we study the "bipartitioning protocol"
where the two halves of a system initially prepared at different temperatures
are joined together and then left to evolve unitarily with the same
Hamiltonian. We identify two different limits in which the semiclassical
predictions are analytically recovered from GHD: a particular non-relativistic
limit and the low temperature regime. Interestingly, the transport of
topological charge becomes sub-ballistic in these cases. Away from these limits
we find that the semiclassical predictions are only approximate and, in
contrast to the latter, the transport is always ballistic. This statement seems
to hold true even for the so-called "hybrid" semiclassical approach, where
finite time DMRG simulations are used to describe the evolution in the internal
space.
