When should you use recursion instead of a while loop?

Recursion is a technique where a function calls itself to solve a problem by breaking it into smaller subproblems. You should consider recursion when the problem naturally decomposes into similar subproblems, the solution can be expressed in terms of itself, and the depth of recursion is bounded. Typical examples include tree traversals, factorial, Fibonacci, permutations, and divide‑and‑conquer algorithms like quicksort. Recursion can lead to cleaner, more readable code, especially for problems with a recursive structure. However, recursion has overhead: each call consumes stack space, and deep recursion can cause stack overflow. In languages without tail‑call optimization, deep recursion can be inefficient. If the problem can be solved iteratively with a simple loop and you need to avoid stack usage or want to guarantee O(1) space, a while loop is preferable. Also, if the problem requires maintaining state across iterations that is easier with a loop, use a while loop. In summary, use recursion when the problem is naturally recursive, the recursion depth is manageable, and code clarity outweighs the overhead; otherwise, use a while loop.