From Repo:

• remove - Removes a given entity or array of entities. It removes all given entities in a single transaction (in the case of entity, manager is not transactional).

Example:

await repository.remove(user);
await repository.remove([
    category1,
    category2,
    category3
]);

• delete - Deletes entities by entity id, ids or given conditions:

Example:

await repository.delete(1);
await repository.delete([1, 2, 3]);
await repository.delete({ firstName: "Timber" });

As stated in example here:

import {getConnection} from "typeorm";

await getConnection()
    .createQueryBuilder()
    .delete()
    .from(User)
    .where("id = :id", { id: 1 })
    .execute();

Which means you should use remove if it contains an array of Entities.

While you should use delete if you know the condition.

Additionally, as @James stated in comment Entity Listener such as @BeforeRemove and @AfterRemove listeners only triggered when the entity is removed using repository.remove.

Similarly, @BeforeInsert, @AfterInsert, @BeforeUpdate, @AfterUpdate only triggered when the entity is inserted/updated using repository.save.

Source: Entity Listeners and Subscribers

Please checkout similar discussion in #2246 . In this case when you call delete you don't have any entities that orm can send you to subscriber. query builder just executes you DELETE * FROM table WHERE x. To fix this behaviour ORM needs to execute SELECT * FROM table WHERE x. It's not efficient of course =) the entity is being passed to subscriber only when you call manager/repository's .remove method with entity passed.