Difference between Computing Architecture and Platform in Computer Science I was looking for an appropriate term to call my proposal. I knew it is either platform or architecture. But could not simply and clearly distinguish them in an academic manner. So, I searched the web and the literature and found few definitions on architecture and platform as follows that sound logical.

Software Architecture: A set of system elements and relations associated with them [reference: documenting software architecture: views and beyond]
Platform: A set of subsystems and technologies providing a coherent set of functionalities through interfaces and specified usage pattern that any subsystem that depends on the platform can use without concern of the detail of how the functionality provided by the platform is implemented1.

However, still is it not clear what are the differences. I guess researchers often use these two terms interchangeably with marginal consideration on their differentiations. Looking at the definitions, I figured out that architecture likely specifies structural properties of systems and usually tries to describe the structure of a system and its consisting components and their relationship. Using architecture, developers cannot produce a system that works according to that architecture. However, platform is trying to specify structural and behavioural attribute of a system by describing its subsystems and their relationship. Platform also provides an abstract by which developers can create new software systems that rely upon the platform.
Is this interpretation accurate enough? One may argue that platform is prepared on top of an architecture and without architecture one may not be able to propose platform.
In your idea, what else are the differences and distinguishing lines between these two terms?
Architecture generally refers to a design-level structure or organization for an entire system.

Platform generally refers to something (an operating system, a library, a programming language, a programming environment) which you can build other things on.