CCNA 200 301 IP Connectivity

If a router learns two different paths for the same network from the same routing protocol, it has to decide which route is better and will be placed in the routing table. Metric is the measure used to decide which route is better (lower number is better). Each routing protocol uses its own metric.
For example, RIP uses hop counts as a metric, while OSPF uses cost.
Reference: https://study-ccna.com/administrative-distance-metric/