- An agent has a value that can be retrieved directly with deref,However an Actor encapsulates state but provides no direct means to access it.
- An Actor encapsulates behavior; an agent does not(the function that implements an action is provided by the sender)
- Actors provide sophisticated support for error detection and recovery, Agents' error reporting is much more primitive.
- Actors can be remote; Angents provide no support for distribution
- Composing actors can deadlock; composing agents cannot.