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I'm really confused about it, sometimes I read something and it refers to {} as curly braces and sometimes to curly brackets, what is the difference between those two terms? Are they referring to the same thing?

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Braces: (also known as curly brackets, or curly braces)

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Yes, they are the same thing.

And, actually, there are many names for it. According to Wikipedia,

{ } — braces (UK and US), flower brackets (India), French brackets, curly brackets, definite brackets, swirly brackets, curly braces, birdie brackets, Scottish brackets, squirrelly brackets, gullwings, seagulls, squiggly brackets, Tuborg brackets (DK), accolades (NL), pointy brackets, or fancy brackets

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    I had an elementary school teacher who referred to them (informally) as Alfred Hitchcocks, owing to their resemblance to the famed director's profile.
    – J.R. ♦
    Commented Jan 2, 2014 at 23:22
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    They're the same thing. As a UK speaker my feeling is that most Brits would refer to "brackets" whilst "braces" is more of a US usage.
    – FakeDIY
    Commented Jan 3, 2014 at 14:31
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Since I can answer but not comment on the answer, let me rephrase this as a new answer:

See the above mentioned Wikipedia article.

A brace is a curly bracket, but not all brackets are braces. Think of bracket as the general term for the opening and closing things, and brace (or curly bracket) as the special characters {}

(), [] and <> are also brackets, but no braces.

  • () are parentheses or round brackets
  • [] are brackets or square brackets
  • <> are chevrons or angle brackets
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