Comment by pjmlp

Reference counting is a GC algorithm, and no this isn't expected, it depends pretty much on the implementation.

Many make the mistake to think there is only one way to do a GC.

One of the authoritative books on the subject, https://gchandbook.org/contents.html

And a quite well known paper on the matter as well, https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/1035292.1028982