What are the differences between Tableau desktop and Tableau Server?

Desktop is the authoring tool. You install it locally, connect to data, build worksheets, dashboards and stories, and write calculations. It is where the work is made.

Server is the distribution platform. You publish finished workbooks and data sources to it, and other people open them in a browser. Server adds the things a shared environment needs: user and group permissions, scheduled extract refreshes, subscriptions, and version history.

Editing exists on Server through web authoring, but it is deliberately more limited than Desktop. The practical split is: build in Desktop, share and govern on Server.

Tableau Cloud is the hosted equivalent of Server — same role, managed by Tableau instead of by your IT team.