Silence

Silence is a status effect that prevents those affected from casting spells for the duration of the silence. It can be useful when ganking a hero with a blink or invisibility spell, as silences tend to have longer duration than other disables giving more time to kill the enemy. Silences in team fights can also be very effective even for a short time as they prevent the enemy from using their spell in combination with one another. Silencing an opponent will also stop any channeling spells that they are currently using.

Mute
Mutes are almost identical to silences, except they will also prevent the use of item abilities. Like silences, they will interrupt cast animations and channeling, but while silences will only interrupt channeled abilities, mutes will interrupt those from items as well.

Mutes also disable certain passive abilities. These include, but are not limited to: A complete list of abilities disabled by mute can be found below.
 * Critical Strike including Pseudo-Critical Strike
 * Cleave
 * Evasion, including Backtrack
 * Bash with the exception of Greater Bash
 * Autocast Unique Attack Modifiers as well as many passive ones
 * Most sources of Lifesteal

There are only two sources of mute in Dota 2:



Hero Abilities Disabled by Mute
Note that in the case of active abilities, the interaction listed is if the casting unit is muted after using the spell. No active abilities can be used while muted.

Item Abilities Disabled by Mute
As above, in the case of active abilities, the listed interaction is if the affected unit is muted after the ability is used.