The two sound very similar, especially with the idea that when you hit ‘buy’ or ‘sell’, you’re only putting in speculative orders and not actually buying/selling anything.
FYI - for newbies - CFD is Contracts For Difference, which is a type of trading where instead of purchasing the asset (e.g. stock), you put an order against a broker that emulates the price of the stock without purchasing anything. (Do I have this correct?)