performance differences between FWD and RWD?

They are both great set-ups but it mainly depends on what you want to do. If you are looking for a daily driver...either one will do! If you want to drift...RWD! If you want to drag...FWD! If you want rally...AWD! Its all good!

FWD is the most fuel efficient, good in snow, but the worst in performance. A FWD car will oversteer and become uncontrollable once you get too much power to the front wheels. Around 200hp on a larger car is the most power a car should ever have routed through the front wheels, anything past that is overkill. RWD is less fuel efficient than FWD. A FWD car will get less than 1mpg better than a RWD with the exact same engine and weight, so while FWD is more fuel efficient, it doesn't make that much of a difference. RWD is the worst on snow so if you drive a RWD car and live in a part of the country that gets snow (like me), you will need snow tires! However, RWD is the best in performance and you can load up the rear wheels with all the power you can! AWD is significantly worse in fuel efficiency than RWD or FWD due to having to power all four wheels at the same time. Expect approximately 75% the gas mileage a FWD or RWD car would get. AWD is also the slower than RWD to accelerate but can handle powerful engines, unlike a FWD car. The same engine in a vehicle of the same weight will be somewhat slower in a AWD configuration than it would be in a RWD configuration. However the pros for AWD vehciles are pretty good. AWD is by far the best on snow and is pretty close to RWD in terms of handling while accelerating. 4x4 means that normally, two-wheels (usually the rear, but it could be the front) are powered, but if you flip a switch power will go to all four wheels. Essentially it's AWD which you can turn on or off, and is mostly used in large trucks and SUVs.

In a FWD car most of the stress is in the front tires (wheels). Which results in better handling in many instances. But when the limits of adhesion are reached, they become very unforgiving.
RWD does a better job of equalizing the stress placed on that small patch of rubber needed to control a car.
You only have so much adhesion in tires, it can be used for steering, braking and/or acceleration. With a RWD car, I can use the adhesion of the rear patch for acceleration, the adhesion of the front for steering and hopefully have reserve in each for braking if needed.
While in a FWD car the adhesion of the front tire has to be split between both steering and acceleration.
As for not fish tailing, bunk. I have driven enough of FWD cars to know that given the right circumstances, the rear end of the car will end up where the front should be!
NEVER NEVER NEVER try to do use the brakes in a turn!

All of that is good in a nutshell, but what are you really asking about? FWD cars are good in the snow because the weight of the engine is over the front wheels and also because they dont fishtail as easily if at all actually. RWD cars 'launch' better than FWD because of the weight transfer. Do you notice how a car 'squats' when it accelerates quickly from a stop? They also handle better for autocross and drifting because you can spin the tires, losing traction, and bring the rear around at will. RWD cars are generally less stable in snow and rain and FWD will 'understeer' if you try to corner too hard vs a RWD car 'oversteering'. FWD cars will tend to become more stable in straight lines if you're trying to recover because they will stabilize when you hit the gas and steer in the 'general' direction. FWD is slightly lighter because no drive shaft to run to the back of the car with a front mounted engine but RWD cars are better balanced because its longitudinally mounted down the centerline of the car.

traction. FWD will tend to get more traction because of the weight over the wheels. However most drag cars are RWD so they have bigger wheels and traction bars so they hook better.

RWD is faster on dry pavement. It accelerates faster and handles better.

FWD is faster on an other surface or wet pavement.

RWD is very slippery in rain and impossible to drive in snow.