Linux Mint vs Elementary OS

Alir

New-ish to Linux. I have a few questions but it's best if I dedicate each question to a single thread.

What is the difference? Which is better: more stable, more supported, etc.?

I'm not after a Mac-OS like feel. I'm just after the better OS. It feels to me like Elementary is in a beta stage - not sure if that's true. But my Windows' home button wasn't working. I had to manually click on the top left of the screen to bring up the search bar while running the live CD. Which. Was. Extremely. Frustrating.

I did like the barebones feel of Elementary 'at first'. It didn't have much software but I got the impression that was a bad thing? wouldn't that mean you would have to do a lot of installing before you could get stuff done? It didn't even have libre office, or Firefox. Opting for Midori, which I haven't heard of. Is it open source as well? And as well regarded? And hopefully more stable than the firefox which crashes a lot?

lol

Can you guys compare the two? Which software repository do the two use? Do they both use Ubuntu?