What is the difference between hand mixer and blender?

Hand mixers require the user to turn the handle to make the rotors spin.
A blender is more powerful, and actually chops the ice or fibrous matter while it mixes. If you tried to do that with a hand mixer, or even an electric mixer, you would break it.

Hand mixers are good for cake batter. Blenders are good for Margaritas.

A hand mixer, I’m going to assume you mean an electric hand mixer, also called an electric beater, is used to make batter, merengues, and to whip cream in whipped cream. The ingredients are placed in a bowl, and then you use the mixer to “mix” the ingredients. You can often do it by hand also with a spoon or beater depending on the ingredients, but it takes a lot of strength to do it manually to get the same results.

A traditional blender you put the ingredients in a container (usually made of thick glass, but not always) and then you you completely blend all ingredients together. Blenders can shred or purée solid ingredients like fruits or vegetables, while the hand mixer cannot do that.

There is a such thing as a hand blender, also called an immersion blender. This will also break up ingredients that are solid, but they need to be soft already. Like stewed tomatoes you could hand blend into a smooth sauce, or pinto beans into refríed beans, etc. Like the hand mixer, the hand blender you have the ingredients in a bowl or pot, and you place the appliance into the ingredients.

I wish more people before posting questions here would first consider “how shall I phrase my question”? What is the difference? The clues are everywhere. What’s the difference in the mixing bowl and the blender can? What’s the difference between blades and beaters Which device can rotate it’s mixing implements more quickly? You can actually clearly see and HEAR the difference.

A hand mixer could be a manual or electric device held by hand and used to mix ingredients, unlike a electric countertop mixer, and the contents being mixed are not enclosed.
A blender is a countertop device for mixing/chopping/blending and has many speeds, some being very high RPM speeds, and is usually completely enclosed with a sealing lid to prevent foods/liquids from being thrown out during operation.
A egg beater could be a hand held, manually operated device for mixing.
(A “beater” is usually the mixing (food contact) attachment for a mixer.)

You can lick the beaters of a hand mixer after its use. I would advise against doing that with a blender.