Amazon Prime Day vs. Black Friday: When are the deals actually better?

The difference between Prime Day and Black Friday — their roots, anyway — probably isn't a mystery to anyone who has dabbled in online shopping before.

Most of us know that Black Friday is the big sale frenzy that happens around Thanksgiving as a precursor to the holidays, and that almost every store you can think of participates.

Alternatively, the name "Prime Day" suggests that the event is indeed an Amazon -specific event made up by Amazon for members of its Prime subscription service .

The lines between these two shopping holidays also aren't quite as blurred as they are between Black Friday and Cyber Monday , which have become pretty indistinguishable from each other due to 1. being just a few days apart on the calendar, and 2.

Black Friday relying just as heavily on online shopping as Cyber Monday does.

But back to the question at hand.

Most people aren't concerned with the semantics of these shopping holidays.

The people just want to know: Does Prime Day or Black Friday have better deals? Let's dig in.

Does Amazon have better deals on Prime Day or Black Friday? Amazon hypes Prime Day up so much that you can't help but assume those few days in the summer are its Olympics.

The retail giant also hosts a 48-hour fall counterpart called " Prime Big Deal Days " in October, which really makes you wonder: It can't possibly have the bandwidth to turn around and do the same damn thing a month later for Black Friday, right? Jeff Bezos is heard cackling in the distance.

Amazon's price history shows that, in many cases, it goes just as hard for Black Friday as it does for Prime Day.

It's not uncommon to plug the Amazon URL for any popular item into the price-tracking site CamelCamelCamel and see a handful of very consistent dips to that item's all-time low pricing — those few instances being in June or July (Prime Day) and the end of November (Black Friday), plus a common third dip in October (Prime Big Deal Days).

SEE ALSO: Walmart vs.

Amazon: Who actually has the best deals? One thing to note: Amazon's Black Friday deals tend to be more accessible than its Prime Day deals, since you don't have to be a paying Prime member to unlock them. (It's the same story for Walmart's Prime Day-esque sale and Black Friday sales, though being a paid Walmart+ member still has its perks, like getting early access to deals.) In terms of what's on sale, there's a ton of overlap between Prime Day (including Prime Big Deal Days) and Black Friday deals.