Hello @ED_10473702 ,
Thingworx Foundation comes along with an installer exe file, You need to run the exe file which in turn auto-creates DB tables etc. and the only Pre-Requiste here is that you have to set Java environment variables.
On the other hand, when you setup Thingworx using Platform ( a war file) then apart from setting Java environment variables you also need to setup and configure tomcat, make changes in platform-settings.json file, run database scripts etc. In conclusion, Thingworx Foundation installer does most of the job which you would have to perform manually if you setup Thingworx using Platform.
Also, ThingWorx wont be different in any of the installation method (in terms of Performance and Functionality).
For more detailed info, you can refer this help center guide to install the ThingWorx Foundation.
Let me know if this info helps.
Regards
Bhawna