Before we jump into the topic you should also know $eval in alert() and then you can also identify the difference between them.
$parse in a type of service module available in ng-model of AngularJs.
In order to explain what really $parse is let us consider the following sample JavaScript code:
$scope.demoParse=function(){
var f=$parse("a*b");
}
Here it should be noted that the expression $parse("a*b") doesn't returns the result instead it returns a template function because $parse in not
working on a scope.But now the returned function can be used for accessing the scope.
$scope.demoParse=function(){
var f=$parse("a*b");
var r=f($scope);
}
once var r=f($scope); is applied it can be used to stored result in var r.
To Sum up things: we can say that in $parse we can use multiple object to access parse (Here the object is $scope other object can be $rootscope) but this is not in the case of $eval where only the specified scope for a variable can access the function and can work only in the current scope