Learn English – What’s the difference between “tool” and “utility”

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I find these two words appear together often, especially mentioned as tool and utility for the Unix operating system. So I am wondering about the difference between them.

Best Answer

They are used pretty interchangeably when talking about software. One explanation from Wikipedia:

Utility software is system software designed to help analyze, configure, optimize or maintain a computer. A single piece of utility software is usually called a utility or tool.

"Tool" is sometimes reserved for items that are more robust, such as having a GUI or more functionality. One example of this distinction can be found in the description of the Visual Studio power tools:

Power Tools are a set of enhancements, tools and command-line utilities.

However, that distinction is mostly a matter of preference.

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