They are very similar command line tools available in Trusty (14.04) and later. apt-get and apt-cache's most commonly used commands are available in apt.

apt-get may be considered as lower-level and "back-end", and support other APT-based tools. apt is designed for end-users (human) and its output may be changed between versions.

Note from apt(8):

The `apt` command is meant to be pleasant for end users and does not need

       to be backward compatible like apt-get(8).

Take a look at this post for more information on the new tool:

• http://mvogt.wordpress.com/2014/04/04/apt-1-0/

A synopsis of the above link (with corrections*):

The big news for this version is that we included a new “apt” binary that combines the most commonly used commands from apt-get and apt-cache. The commands are the same as their apt-get/apt-cache counterparts but with slightly different configuration options.

Currently the apt binary supports the following commands:

• list: which is similar to dpkg list and can be used with flags like
  --installed or --upgradable.


• search: works just like apt-cache search but sorted alphabetically.


• show: works like apt-cache show but hide some details that people are less likely to care about (like the hashes). The full record is still available via apt-cache show of course.


• update: like the regular apt-get update with color output enabled, but apt update also shows the number of upgradeable packages (if any).


• install,remove: adds progress output during the dpkg run.


• upgrade: the same as apt-get upgrade --with-new-pkgs.*


• full-upgrade: a more meaningful name for dist-upgrade.


• edit-sources: edit sources.list using $EDITOR.


• policy: works just like apt-cache policy

You can enable/disable the install progress [bar] via:

# echo 'Dpkg::Progress-Fancy "1";' > /etc/apt/apt.conf.d/99progressbar