Quick Answer
Streams use internal iteration - you say what to do, the API handles how (can optimize, parallelize). Traditional iteration (for loop) uses external iteration - you control the loop. Streams are lazy (intermediate ops deferred), composable (chained pipelines), can be parallelized with one method call, and more declarative. Streams can only be consumed once - reuse the source to create a new stream.
Answer
Streams provide declarative processing. Support lazy evaluation and parallelism. Improve readability and performance for large datasets.
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SugharaIQ Editorial Team
Verified Answer
This answer has been peer-reviewed by industry experts holding senior engineering roles to ensure technical accuracy and relevance for modern interview standards.
