Difference between Salesforce.com and Force.com

Difference between Salesforce.com and Force.com

In a very simple terms -

Force.com is the OS(Operating System) on which your cell phone is running.

Salesforce.com is you actual cell phone.

In detail

Firstly,

Force.com is the FRAMEWORK, this allows users to build their your own applications and/or customize the standard applications provided by Salesforce.com.
In Force.com users have build their own Data Model, Business logic, and user interface from scratch for their applications.

Salesforce.com is READY TO USE  Sales(CRM) and Service application. Meaning to say Salesforce.com  provides  pre-built applications under "Sales Cloud", "Marketing Cloud", "Service Cloud" process. 

All the applications provided by Salesforce.com are developed and running on Force.com Platform. Also this means that User will be given pre built applications with fully developed Data Model, Business Logic and User Interface.

Secondly,
Force.com is PAAS (Platform as a Service)
Here a framework is provided for user, user can build his own application as desired by using the available features of Framework. Here user has to put in effort to build the desired app and then use it.
summary- Force.com is used to
a) Customize and extend the core functionality offered by Salesforce

b) Create new applications and/or product

Salesforce.com is AaaS (Application as a Service)
Here built applications are provided to users. Users have to just purchase it and start using it, if required can make customization

Thirdly,

Force.com platform license is way much cheaper than the Salesforce.com license but takes lot of effort and time to build any functionality which is billed in Salesforce.com application.

Salesforce.com has been made available to people for use at per month per license pricing

As an example:

When you sign up for Salesforce.com's "sales cloud" - you get the CRM functionality that's pre-built by Salesforce. You can use Force.com (and other tools) to customize your CRM or build new applications that are housed within your salesforce instance (organization). 

Force.com includes the following major building blocks for building your applications:

a) Apex - Java like programming language for building your application logic
b) Visualforce - for building application user interfaces
c) Database.com (aka Custom Objects) - for storing your data


Apart from the above, the platform also includes other shared framework components that you can leverage - such as scheduling engine, email service, public facing websites etc etc.