They are two separate fields of supporting personal development which have many common areas.  For example, both methods use certain tools, which are practically the same.

In turn, the greatest differences are:

A mentor is a person  who should have considerable experience in the same professional field as the mentee, which is the basis of his work with the protégée.   A Coach does not necessarily have to have such experience (there even are such situations when it may disturb the Coaching process).

The mentoring process most often concerns: activities, Behaviour, and procedures, whereas coaching, especially the holistic approach, concentrates also on deeper levels, like unused convictions, Values or The client’s Identity.

Often, we deal with a situation when the mentor is also an employee of a given company (somebody who has more experience and has worked longer in the organisation at a higher managerial level), while the coach may not be aware of the exact situation within the company, because for him -an individual person’s development is of key importance.

A large part of the mentoring processes concentrate on the implementation of new employees  (or  transferring somebody to a new position), whilst coaching deals with a very wide spectrum of Goals.

Because of his experience, a mentor can give advice, and by doing so he becomes to some extent responsible for his protégée, that he will follow his guidance.  A coach, on the other hand, will restrain from giving any advice, because this could have a negative impact on The coaching process .