| Main Use | Collections are primarily used for storing and grouping data | Streams are primarily used for performing operations on data |
| Manipulation | Elements can be added or removed from collections | Elements can’t be added or removed from streams |
| Iteration | Collections need to be externally iterated | Streams are internally iterated |
| Traversal | Collections can be traversed multiple times | Streams can be traversed only once |
| Construction | Collections are eagerly constructed | Streams are lazily constructed |
| Examples | List, Set, Map, etc | Filtering, mapping, matching, etc |