Difference between automations and workflow automations in Jira software

[alex_viale]

What's the difference between "Automations" found within a project's settings in the left nav, versus going into "Workflows" also found within a project's settings in the left nav, and adding automations from there?

[Trudy Claspill]

Hello @alex_viale 

Workflows determine how your issues can move from one status to another. The Automations that are added there execute within the context of a status change for an issue.

The Automations feature enables you to create automation rules triggered by a variety of events; status change, change of values of fields, comment added/deleted/updated, worklog added/deleted/updated, and so on. The rule can also be created so that they run on a scheduled basis, or can be triggered manually by a user.

That's the primary difference. 

Also, Automation Rules are, I believe capable of a great deal more than the automations you can natively add within a Workflow.