Given below in a table is the comparison between protons, neutrons and electrons:
| They are positively charged | They are neutral | They are negatively charged |
| They are present in the nucleus of all atoms | They are present in the nucleus of all atoms except hydrogen | They are present in the outer shells within an atom and orbit the positively charged nucleus in well-defined orbits |
| The mass of the proton is taken as one unit and equals the mass of a neutron | The mass of the neutron is considered as one unit and it equals the mass of a proton | The mass of an electron is about 1/2000 times the mass of a hydrogen atom |
| A proton is represented as “p” | A neutron is represented as “n” | An electron is represented as “e” |