What is the difference between outlook meeting and appointment?

Why are the meeting and appointment separate things where seemingly they do the same thing? What is the difference?

Solution 1:

The main difference is that appointments affects only your own calendar and in meetings you can invite others.

In appointments, you don't have the choice to invite others and self is automatically included. Consequently there is no option to Send but you finish it with Save & Close.

For meetings, there is the send option because it is intended to send to participants.

A typical use of appointment is if you want to mark our calendar out of office like here.

Of course if you wanted to, you could arrange a meeting involving only yourself and then it's similar as an appointment.

Solution 2:

Appointment is a special type of meeting where you are the only participant and you will not see any send button to send this to others. Appointment is only meant for blocking your own calendar for specific work. While creating an appointment, if you add even a single recipient to the appointment, the appointment turns into a meeting and you will get to see the send option as well.