并发是指多个任务的执行是交错的，而不是每个任务依次执行。

并行性是指这些任务实际上是并行执行的。

异步是一个单独的概念(尽管在某些上下文中是相关的)。它指的是一个事件可能发生在与另一个事件不同的时间(不同步)。下面的图表说明了同步执行和异步执行之间的区别，其中参与者可以对应于不同的线程、进程甚至服务器。

总结

并发(Concurrent):多件事情似乎同时发生(具有在并发任务之间快速切换的能力;它们是并发的，因为每个任务都想要一块资源，CPU等等。)

并行是指同时发生多件事情(执行线程的数量与执行内核的数量密切相关)

异步是简单的非阻塞，当我们必须等待的事情不会让我们忙于等待(需要某种通知机制从我们离开的地方继续)

这里有一些语义需要澄清:

并发或并行是资源争用的问题，而异步是关于控制流的问题。

不同的过程(或它们的组成操作)被称为异步的，当它们的处理顺序没有确定的实现时;换句话说，它们中的任何一个都有可能在任何给定的时间t被处理。根据定义，多个处理器(例如cpu或Persons)使多个处理器同时被处理成为可能;在单个处理器上，它们的处理是交错的(例如线程)。

当异步过程或操作共享资源时，它们被称为Concurrent;当没有资源共享(例如不同的处理器和存储)时，并行性是微不足道的保证;否则必须解决并发控制问题。

因此，异步过程或操作可以与其他过程或操作并行或并发地处理。

每个人都很难将异步与并行或并发相关联，因为异步既不是并行的反义词，也不是并发的反义词。它是同步的反义词。它只是表示某些东西，在这个例子中是线程，是否会与其他东西同步，在这个例子中是另一个线程。

Concurrency Concurrency means that an application is making progress on more than one task at the same time (concurrently). Well, if the computer only has one CPU the application may not make progress on more than one task at exactly the same time, but more than one task is being processed at a time inside the application. It does not completely finish one task before it begins the next. Parallelism Parallelism means that an application splits its tasks up into smaller subtasks which can be processed in parallel, for instance on multiple CPUs at the exact same time. Concurrency vs. Parallelism In Detail As you can see, concurrency is related to how an application handles multiple tasks it works on. An application may process one task at at time (sequentially) or work on multiple tasks at the same time (concurrently). Parallelism on the other hand, is related to how an application handles each individual task. An application may process the task serially from start to end, or split the task up into subtasks which can be completed in parallel. As you can see, an application can be concurrent, but not parallel. This means that it processes more than one task at the same time, but the tasks are not broken down into subtasks. An application can also be parallel but not concurrent. This means that the application only works on one task at a time, and this task is broken down into subtasks which can be processed in parallel. Additionally, an application can be neither concurrent nor parallel. This means that it works on only one task at a time, and the task is never broken down into subtasks for parallel execution. Finally, an application can also be both concurrent and parallel, in that it both works on multiple tasks at the same time, and also breaks each task down into subtasks for parallel execution. However, some of the benefits of concurrency and parallelism may be lost in this scenario, as the CPUs in the computer are already kept reasonably busy with either concurrency or parallelism alone. Combining it may lead to only a small performance gain or even performance loss. Make sure you analyze and measure before you adopt a concurrent parallel model blindly.

从http://tutorials.jenkov.com/java-concurrency/concurrency-vs-parallelism.html

并发和并行实际上是相同的原理，两者都与同时执行的任务有关，尽管我想说并行任务应该是真正的多任务，“同时”执行，而并发可能意味着任务共享执行线程，同时仍然看起来是并行执行。

异步方法与前两个概念没有直接关系，异步被用来呈现并发或并行任务的印象，但实际上异步方法调用通常用于需要在当前应用程序之外执行工作的进程，我们不希望等待和阻塞应用程序等待响应。

例如，从数据库获取数据可能需要时间，但我们不想阻塞UI等待数据。异步调用接受回调引用，并在请求被放置到远程系统后立即将执行返回给您的代码。当远程系统执行所需的任何处理时，UI可以继续响应用户，一旦它将数据返回给回调方法，那么该方法就可以适当地更新UI(或移交更新)。

从用户的角度来看，它看起来像多任务处理，但它可能不是。

EDIT

可能值得补充的是，在许多实现中，异步方法调用会导致线程启动，但这不是必要的，这实际上取决于正在执行的操作以及如何将响应通知回系统。