apachectl vs httpd

apachectl - Apache HTTP Server Control Interface
apachectl is a front end to the Apache HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) server. It is designed to help the administrator control the functioning of the Apache httpd daemon.
The apachectl script can operate in two modes.
First, it can act as a simple front-end to the httpd command that simply sets any necessary environment variables and then invokes httpd, passing through any command line arguments.
Second, apachectl can act as a SysV init script, taking simple one-word arguments like start, restart, and stop, and translating them into appropriate signals to httpd.
If your Apache installation uses non-standard paths, you will need to edit the apachectl script to set the appropriate paths to the httpd binary. You can also specify any necessary httpd command line arguments. See the comments in the script for details.
The apachectl script returns a 0 exit value on success, and >0 if an error occurs. For more details, view the comments in the script.
https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/programs/apachectl.html

 

httpd - Apache Hypertext Transfer Protocol Server
httpd is the Apache HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) server program. It is designed to be run as a standalone daemon process. When used like this it will create a pool of child processes or threads to handle requests.
In general, httpd should not be invoked directly, but rather should be invoked via apachectl on Unix-based systems or as a service on Windows NT, 2000 and XP and as a console application on Windows 9x and ME.
https://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.4/programs/httpd.html