Thread: Threads are the basic unit to which an operating system allocates processor time, and more than one thread can be executing code inside that process.Process: A process is a collection of threads that share the same virtual memory. A process has at least one thread of execution, and a thread always run in a process context.

Both processes and threads are independent sequences of execution. The typical difference is that threads (of the same process) run in a shared memory space, while processes run in separate memory spaces.I'm not sure what "hardware" vs "software" threads might be referring to. Threads are an operating environment feature, rather than a CPU feature (though the CPU typically has operations that make threads efficient).Erlang uses the term "process" because it does not expose a shared-memory multiprogramming model. Calling them "threads" would imply that they have shared memory.

Process: A process runs independently and isolated of other processes. It cannot directly access shared data in other processes. The resources of the process are allocated to it via the operating system, e.g. memory and CPU time.

Threads: Threads are so called lightweight processes which have their own call stack but an access shared data. Every thread has its own memory cache. If a thread reads shared data it stores this data in its own memory cache. A thread can re-read the shared data, when this happens in Java will be explained in Java memory model part of this article.