🍪 Cookies vs Cache: What's the Difference and Why It Matters?

When building or browsing websites, you've probably heard the terms cookies and cache. Both are stored by your browser, and both aim to improve your experience — but they do very different things.

Let’s break them down in simple terms.

What are Cookies?

Cookies are small pieces of data stored in your browser by websites.

They’re mostly used to remember information about you as a user, such as:

• Are you logged in?

• What's in your shopping cart?

• Which language did you choose?

Example Use Case:

You log into a website and check "Remember Me". That information is saved in a cookie, so the next time you visit, you don’t have to log in again.

What is Cache?

Cache stores parts of a website — like images, CSS, JavaScript files — directly in your browser.

The main purpose of caching is to make websites load faster and reduce the load on the server.

Example Use Case:

When you visit a site for the first time, your browser downloads its logo, layout, etc. Next time, instead of downloading all that again, your browser uses the cached version.