What is the difference between Project Stage and Project Status?

Stages can be customized for each project and show your progress working with a project from start to finish, while statuses can be used to manage and sort all of your projects. For example, "invoice sent" and "paid" would both be statuses because, regardless of the project's customized stage pipeline, almost all projects must be invoiced and paid.

Since not all projects require the same steps to complete, using global statuses to track a project's actual stage may not be as accurate as using project pipelines and stage templates. A Tutorial Video is available explaining Project and Stage templates at the link below:
Video: Project Templates and Stage Templates