In Java, Collection and Collections serve distinct purposes within the Collections Framework, which is a unified architecture for representing and manipulating collections of objects.

Collection is an interface that forms the foundation of the collection hierarchy in Java. It represents a group of objects, known as elements, as a single entity. This interface is akin to a container that can hold and manipulate a collection of objects. The Collection interface includes methods such as add(), remove(), clear(), size(), and contains(), which are fundamental to manipulating the groups of objects it represents.

Here's a simple example of using the Collection interface:

Collections, on the other hand, is a utility class in the java.util package that provides static methods to operate on or return collections. It includes methods for common tasks such as sorting, searching, reversing, shuffling, and modifying collection elements in various ways. Collections cannot be instantiated because it only contains static methods and is designed to operate on or return collections.

Here's an example of using the Collections utility class:

In summary, Collection is an interface that provides a general way to handle groups of objects, while Collections is a utility class that offers a suite of static methods for common operations on collections. Understanding the distinction between these two is crucial for effectively working with the Java Collections Framework.