What is the difference between a crash and a bug in software?

Crash — is a sudden and unpredictable termination of a program, often caused by a critical error. When a crash occurs, the program stops functioning and may be forcibly closed by the operating system.

Causes of crashes:

• Memory errors (out-of-bounds array access, use of freed memory).
• Unhandled exceptions.
• Hardware or driver issues.
• Lack of system resources.

A bug is a defect or flaw in the program code that leads to incorrect or unexpected behavior, but does not necessarily cause it to terminate completely. A bug can manifest as incorrect calculations, wrong data display, logical errors, etc.

Key differences:

Characteristic	Crash	Bug
Manifestation	Sudden termination of the program.	Incorrect or unexpected behavior.
Consequences	Complete cessation of operation.	Incorrect results, logical violations, etc.
Cause	Often a critical execution error.	Logical error, incorrect algorithm, etc.
Recovery	Requires restarting the program.	May allow continuation with the defect.