StringBuilder和StringBuffer几乎相同。不同之处在于StringBuffer是同步的，而StringBuilder不是。尽管StringBuilder比StringBuffer更快，但性能差异很小。StringBuilder是SUN对StringBuffer的替代品。它只是避免了所有公共方法的同步。相反，它们的功能是相同的。

良好使用示例：

如果您的文本将要更改并被多个线程使用，那么最好使用StringBuffer。如果您的文本将要更改，但被单个线程使用，请使用StringBuilder。

StringBuffer和StringBuilder源之间的差异：

一个简单的程序说明了StringBuffer和StringBuilder之间的区别：

/**
 * Run this program a couple of times. We see that the StringBuilder does not
 * give us reliable results because its methods are not thread-safe as compared
 * to StringBuffer.
 * 
 * For example, the single append in StringBuffer is thread-safe, i.e.
 * only one thread can call append() at any time and would finish writing
 * back to memory one at a time. In contrast, the append() in the StringBuilder 
 * class can be called concurrently by many threads, so the final size of the 
 * StringBuilder is sometimes less than expected.
 * 
 */
public class StringBufferVSStringBuilder {

    public static void main(String[] args) throws InterruptedException {

        int n = 10; 

        //*************************String Builder Test*******************************//
        StringBuilder sb = new StringBuilder();
        StringBuilderTest[] builderThreads = new StringBuilderTest[n];
        for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
            builderThreads[i] = new StringBuilderTest(sb);
        }
        for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
            builderThreads[i].start();
        }
        for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
            builderThreads[i].join();
        }
        System.out.println("StringBuilderTest: Expected result is 1000; got " + sb.length());

        //*************************String Buffer Test*******************************//

        StringBuffer sb2 = new StringBuffer();
        StringBufferTest[] bufferThreads = new StringBufferTest[n];
        for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
            bufferThreads[i] = new StringBufferTest(sb2);
        }
        for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
            bufferThreads[i].start();
        }
        for (int i = 0; i < n; i++) {
            bufferThreads[i].join();
        }
        System.out.println("StringBufferTest: Expected result is 1000; got " + sb2.length());

    }

}

// Every run would attempt to append 100 "A"s to the StringBuilder.
class StringBuilderTest extends Thread {

    StringBuilder sb;

    public StringBuilderTest (StringBuilder sb) {
        this.sb = sb;
    }

    @Override
    public void run() {
        for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++) {
            sb.append("A");
        }

    }
}


//Every run would attempt to append 100 "A"s to the StringBuffer.
class StringBufferTest extends Thread {

    StringBuffer sb2;

    public StringBufferTest (StringBuffer sb2) {
        this.sb2 = sb2;
    }

    @Override
    public void run() {
        for (int i = 0; i < 100; i++) {
            sb2.append("A");
        }

    }
}

其他人正确地指出了两者之间的关键区别。然而，在性能方面，我想补充一点，JVM级别的优化“锁定Elision”可以使同步上下文中的性能差异几乎不存在。关于这一点的精彩阅读在这里和这里

StringBuffer用于存储将要更改的字符串（字符串对象不能更改）。它会根据需要自动展开。相关类：String、CharSequence。

StringBuilder是在Java5中添加的。它在所有方面都与StringBuffer相同，只是它不同步，这意味着如果多个线程同时访问它，可能会出现问题。对于单线程程序，最常见的情况是，避免同步开销会使StringBuilder稍微快一些。

StringBuffer是线程安全的，但StringBuilder不是线程安全的。StringBuilder比StringBuffer更快。StringBuffer已同步，而StringBuilder未同步同步。