Canary deployment is a strategy used in software deployment where a new version of an application is rolled out to a small subset of users before making it available to the entire user base. This approach allows developers and operations teams to test the new release in a production environment with real traffic, but limits the exposure to a small group of users. The term “canary” comes from the historical use of canary birds in coal mines to detect toxic gases; similarly, the deployment serves as an early indicator of potential problems with the new version of the software without affecting all users.
Canary release is a software deployment method used to minimize the risk of introducing a new software version in the production environment. This strategy involves releasing the new version to a small percentage of users before rolling it out to the entire user base. The goal of a canary release is to test the stability and performance of the new version under real-world conditions with actual users, but on a limited scale.
The conception are very similar and it’s easy to get confused. I find this explanation always make it clear for the main difference: