What is the difference between a Trie and a Hash Table for string storage?

What is the difference between a Trie and a Hash Table for string storage?

Approach: Compare prefix matching ability and memory usage.

A Trie (prefix tree) allows for efficient prefix searching and auto-complete features by storing characters at nodes. A Hash Table provides O(1) average lookup for exact matches but cannot perform range or prefix queries efficiently.

Follow-up: Which is more space-efficient for many short strings?

Key concepts: prefix search, collision, alphabet size.