SharePoint Groups vs. Active Directory Groups

SharePoint Group	Active Directory Group
Members of this group can be added/removed from within SharePoint. The permission to add or remove users from the group can be delegated to SharePoint users.	Members of this group can be managed within Active Directory. Only Active Directory administrators have the permission to modify group memberships.
Members of this group can be visible to users.	Members of this group are not visible to users.
Cannot contain another SharePoint group as member.	Can contain another Active Directory Group.
Must have a unique name on site collection level. The name is the unique identifier of the group.	Can cause serious problems in lage scale scenarios: A user might only be a member of 1024 Active Directory groups (recoursively). If this number is reached the user is no longer able to log on to Windows. Read the Microsoft documentation for more information.
Can contain SharePoint users that do not exist in the Active Directory.