在Win32中，光纤是一种用户管理的线程。一个光纤有它自己的堆栈和指令指针等等，但是光纤不是由操作系统调度的:你必须显式地调用SwitchToFiber。相反，线程是由操作系统预先调度的。因此，粗略地说，光纤是在应用程序/运行时级别管理的线程，而不是真正的操作系统线程。

结果是光纤更便宜，应用程序对调度有更多的控制。如果应用程序创建了大量并发任务，并且/或希望在运行时密切优化，这可能很重要。例如，数据库服务器可能选择使用光纤而不是线程。

(同一术语可能有其他用法;如上所述，这是Win32的定义。)

线程使用抢占式调度，而光纤使用协作式调度。

对于一个线程，控制流可能在任何时候被中断，而另一个线程可以接管。使用多个处理器，可以同时运行多个线程(同步多线程，或SMT)。因此，您必须非常小心并发数据访问，并使用互斥锁、信号量、条件变量等保护数据。这通常是非常棘手的。

对于光纤，控制只在您告诉它切换时才切换，通常使用名为yield()的函数调用。这使得并发数据访问更容易，因为您不必担心数据结构或互斥对象的原子性。只要您不让步，就不会有被抢占的危险，也不会有另一条光纤试图读取或修改您正在处理的数据。因此，如果你的纤维进入了一个无限循环，其他的纤维就无法运行，因为你没有屈服。

您还可以混合使用线程和纤维，这会导致两者都面临的问题。不建议这样做，但如果仔细的话，有时这样做是正确的。

线程由操作系统调度(抢占式)。一个线程可以在任何时候被操作系统停止或恢复，但是纤维或多或少地管理自己(合作)并相互让步。也就是说，程序员控制光纤何时进行处理，以及该处理何时切换到另一条光纤。

首先，我建议阅读关于进程和线程之间区别的解释，作为背景材料。

一旦你读过了，这就很简单了。线程既可以在内核中实现，也可以在用户空间中实现，或者两者混合实现。光纤基本上是在用户空间中实现的线程。

What is typically called a thread is a thread of execution implemented in the kernel: what's known as a kernel thread. The scheduling of a kernel thread is handled exclusively by the kernel, although a kernel thread can voluntarily release the CPU by sleeping if it wants. A kernel thread has the advantage that it can use blocking I/O and let the kernel worry about scheduling. It's main disadvantage is that thread switching is relatively slow since it requires trapping into the kernel. Fibers are user space threads whose scheduling is handled in user space by one or more kernel threads under a single process. This makes fiber switching very fast. If you group all the fibers accessing a particular set of shared data under the context of a single kernel thread and have their scheduling handled by a single kernel thread, then you can eliminate synchronization issues since the fibers will effectively run in serial and you have complete control over their scheduling. Grouping related fibers under a single kernel thread is important, since the kernel thread they are running in can be pre-empted by the kernel. This point is not made clear in many of the other answers. Also, if you use blocking I/O in a fiber, the entire kernel thread it is a part of blocks including all the fibers that are part of that kernel thread.

在现代操作系统中的第11.4节“Windows Vista中的进程和线程”中，Tanenbaum评论道:

Although fibers are cooperatively scheduled, if there are multiple threads scheduling the fibers, a lot of careful synchronization is required to make sure fi­bers do not interfere with each other. To simplify the interaction between threads and fibers, it is often useful to create only as many threads as there are processors to run them, and affinitize the threads to each run only on a distinct set of avail­able processors, or even just one processor. Each thread can then run a particular subset of the fibers, establishing a one­ to-many relationship between threads and fibers which simplifies synchronization. Even so there are still many difficulties with fibers. Most Win32 libraries are completely unaware of fibers, and applications that attempt to use fibers as if they were threads will encounter various failures. The kernel has no knowledge of fi­bers, and when a fiber enters the kernel, the thread it is executing on may block and the kernel will schedule an arbitrary thread on the processor, making it unavailable to run other fibers. For these reasons fibers are rarely used except when porting code from other systems that explicitly need the functionality pro­vided by fibers.

线程最初是作为轻量级进程创建的。以类似的方式，纤维是一种轻量级的线程，依靠(简单地说)纤维本身通过提供控制来相互调度。

我猜下一步将是每次你想让他们执行指令时，你都必须向他们发送一个信号(不像我5岁的儿子:-)。在过去(甚至现在在一些嵌入式平台上)，所有的线程都是纤维，没有抢占，您必须编写线程以使其表现良好。

在Win32中，光纤是一种用户管理的线程。一个光纤有它自己的堆栈和指令指针等等，但是光纤不是由操作系统调度的:你必须显式地调用SwitchToFiber。相反，线程是由操作系统预先调度的。因此，粗略地说，光纤是在应用程序/运行时级别管理的线程，而不是真正的操作系统线程。

结果是光纤更便宜，应用程序对调度有更多的控制。如果应用程序创建了大量并发任务，并且/或希望在运行时密切优化，这可能很重要。例如，数据库服务器可能选择使用光纤而不是线程。

(同一术语可能有其他用法;如上所述，这是Win32的定义。)