What is the difference between blue-green and canary deployments?

Answer

Both are strategies for releasing new versions with minimal risk. In a blue-green deployment you run two identical environments—one live (blue) and one with the new version (green)—then switch all traffic over at once, with instant rollback by switching back. In a canary deployment you release the new version to a small subset of users first, watch metrics, and gradually increase traffic if it stays healthy. Blue-green favors a fast, clean cutover; canary favors incremental risk control and early detection of problems under real load.