How was the diffusion of Buddhism and Christianity alike and different?

The Walrus: How was the diffusion of Buddhism and Christianity alike and different?
Between their origins and the sixth century, how were the diffusion of Christianity and the diffusion of Buddhism alike and different, including how they gained followers.

Answers and Views:

Answer by Dana the Great
Christianity was practiced mostly by underground cults and was subject to much violence, because their views were considered to be heretical. Buddhism spread well with its Hindu roots, by scholars and missionaries. Christianity also was mostly part of the Roman Empire and Europe, while Buddhism was practiced predominantly in Asia.

Answer by Vajradharma
The Buddha had the opportunity to teach for a lot longer than Jesus (45 years from his enlightenment), living until his 80s, by his death he had set up schools of tens of thousands of monks, and other people that he had enlightened, who passed the lineage of teachings via monistaries, which acted as schools. They welcome/d all visitors, and over time formed influencial councils, where they established Buddhas exact teachings to be passed on.
They were generally accepted by Hindus, not always but usually.
They spread like wildfire under an Indian king named Asoka the Great, who ironically was war-like [but he done it for reasons to the effect of the Chinese king in the Jet Li movie Hero, “all united under heaven”], he united vast parts of India from conquering smaller tribes, and most converted to Buddhism.
There were a good few monks who gained notoriety for being enlightened and the like, they brought vast popularity to Buddhism and spread it far and wide throughout the East (E.g. Bodhidharma, who spread it from India to China, and is said to have founded Kung Fu at the Shaolin temple from Buddhist Yoga; and Padmasambhava who first brought Buddhism to Tibet from India).

Here’s a helpful page:

https://www.buddhist-temples.com/history-of-buddhism.html

This website will tell you a whole lot more about early Christian history than I possibly could!

https://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?groupid=191&HistoryID=aa22