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They are different, but related. Karl Marx (the father of communism) said that socialism is a "pit stop" on the way to communism. Socialism is where the state (and so the people) own the means of production. Essentially, instead of a private company owning a factory, it might be nationalised so the nation owns it. This is meant to stop exploitation of the workers. Communism, however, goes much further. It's important to note that there has never been a single communist state in the history of the world. Certain states have claimed to be communist, but none ever achieved it as Marx and Engels envisioned. What they wanted was a classless society (no working classes, middle classes, and upper classes) where private property doesn't exist and everything is owned communally (hence, 'communism'. They wanted to create a community). People share everything. Because of this, there is no need for currency. People just make everything they need and share it amongst themselves. They don't make things for profit, they make it because they want to make it. Communism has a bit of a mantra: "from each according to their ability to each according to their need". It essentially means, "do what work you can and you'll get what you need to live". Let's say that you love baking. It's your favourite thing in the world. So, you say "I want to bake and share this with everyone!". So you open a bakery. Bill comes in in the morning and asks for a loaf of bread. You give it to them, no exchange of money, you just give it to him. Cool! But later that day your chair breaks. A shame, but fortunately good ol' Bill who you gave that bread to loves making chairs. He's pretty great at it. You go round his house later and he gives you whichever chair you want. This is what communism is: people sharing, leaving in a community, and not trying to compete against each other. In capitalism, Bill would make that chair to sell; in communism, he makes that chair to sit on. In the final stage of communism the state itself would cease to exist, as people can govern themselves and live without the need for working for profit (which they called wage-slavery). tl;dr socialism is where the state, and so the people, own the means of production. Communism tries to eliminate currency, the government, property, and the class system. More on reddit.com

Nothing really - or at least each case would require more clarification. These general terms are fluid and there is more political diversity among socialists than among social liberals and conservatives, so it’s all a bit blurry. In broad strokes: Socialism is a general term and very general. This can mean a Marxist socialism of rupture/revolution where there is a completely new type of society… but it can also be used to mean “socialistic” features in capitalism, so social democrats in the US are called socialists, Democratic Socialists who only support electoral efforts are socialists. Communism is also broad but generally means socialism but excluding reformist efforts of socialism through the capitalist state or reforming capitalism into socialism. Communism implies rupture, a break with capitalist society and a classless stateless one instead. So anarchists and Marxists are both communists, MLs (pro-USSR socialists) say those states are trying to achieve communism at some point in the future when there is enough production or something. I’m a Marxist and Marx used the terms interchangeably as I understand it. They basically used “communism” because it sounded more hardcore and they wanted to distinguish their “scientific socialism” based in history and class struggle with “utopian socialism” which was based more on ideals and coming up with plans for a harmonious cross-class society. When I was growing up, during the Cold War in the US, communist meant USSR or China supporter and Socialist often just was a more general term often implying non-USSR style socialism (usually either a different kind of Marxism or social democracy.) Sometimes in contemporary use, people will use socialism and communism for the Marxist concept of higher and lower phases of communism. Basically in Marxism the idea is that workers freeing themselves is how we can viably create a society without class and coercion. The lower phase of this would be more formal as people have to do a lot more organizing and debating and so on to actually structurally change society, but this “worker’s power” ad-hoc state would be redundant pretty quickly leading to most things being more done through custom and common sense than to organize some big decisions-making process involving multiple communities and different worker collectives all planning a mutual project. At any rate a lot of people online now call the lower phase “socialism” and the higher phase “communism.” I hope all that didn’t confuse more than help. More on reddit.com

Communism is more difficult to scale. That's pretty much it, at least on the most basic level. More on reddit.com