Difference between forward and tell in akka actors

The sender() will be different on the receiving end.

Message sends using tell (also known as !):

A tells message M to B.
B tells that message to C.
C thinks the sender() of message M is B.

Message sends using forward:

A tells message M to B.
B forwards that message to C.
C thinks the sender() of message M is A.

Worth pointing out is, that you can achieve the same as forward when explicitly setting the sender of a message using tell, however this is not typical Akka-style:

// inside `B`, when received `msg` from `A`
C tell (msg, A) 
      == 
C forward msg

For more info refer to the docs about forward.

Tell sets the sender as the actor sending the message.

Forward keeps the original sender of the message.

target.tell(message, getSelf()); final Object result = ""; target.forward(result, getContext());

Here, getself() is the self reference of the actor. getcontext() is the supervisor reference.