What is the difference between the normal “insert” operation and “Database.insert” operation in Salesforce?

Assume that you are inserting 100 records. If any one of the records fails due to error then entire operation will fail. None of the records will be saved into the database. With insert/update if we use try-catch then we can capture only one error which will cause to stop the operation. Assume that you are inserting 100 records. If any one of the records fails due to error then it will perform partial operation (valid records will be inserted/updated) if we use
Database.insert(list,false)/ Database.update(list,false). With Database.insert/Database.update we can capture all the errors by saving result in Database.saveResult[].

Hi,

Insert is the DML statement which is same as databse.insert. However, database.insert gives more flexibility like rollback, default assignment rules etc. we can achieve the database.insert behavior in insert by using the method setOptions(Database.DMLOptions)

Important Difference:

If we use the DML statement (insert), then in bulk operation if error occurs, the execution will stop and Apex code throws an error which can be handled in try catch block.

If DML database methods (Database.insert) used, then if error occurs the remaining records will be inserted / updated means partial DML operation will be done.

Hope this helps.