Abstract: Mobile Ad hoc-networking (MANET) is becoming increasingly important in today’s world and a number of protocols have been developed for them. However a comparison between them is lacking to help determine an optimal one. This study addresses this issue by comparing the relative performance of four key Ad hoc routing protocols; Destination-sequenced distance vector (DSDV), Temporally ordered routing algorithm (TORA), Dynamic source routing (DSR) and Ad hoc on-demand distance vector (AODV). This study subjected the protocols to identical loads and environmental conditions and evaluate their relative performance with respect to end-to-end throughput and delay, control packet overhead and route acquisition time. From the detailed simulation results and analysis of presented, an appropriate choice of routing protocol can be made for given network context and goal.