  A mobile Ad-hoc network (MANET) is a dynamic multi hop wireless network
established by a group of nodes in which there is no central administration.
Due to mobility of nodes and dynamic network topology, the routing is one of
the most important challenges in ad-hoc networks. Several routing algorithms
for MANETs have been proposed by the researchers which have been classified
into various categories, however, the most prominent categories are proactive,
reactive and hybrid. The performance comparison of routing protocols for MANETs
has been presented by other researcher also, however, none of these works
considers proactive, reactive and hybrid protocols together. In this paper, the
performance of proactive (DSDV), reactive (DSR and AODV) and hybrid (ZRP)
routing protocols has been compared. The performance differentials are analyzed
on the basis of throughput, average delay, routing overhead and number of
packets dropped with a variation of number of nodes, pause time and mobility.
