No. A laser level projects a straight reference line and has no idea how far away anything is. It is an easy mistake to make, and an expensive one, because the two tools sit side by side at similar prices.
A laser level answers the question "is this straight?" It projects a line, or several lines, that are perfectly level or perfectly plumb, and you align your work to that line. It emits light continuously and never listens for anything coming back.
A laser measure answers the question "how far is that?" It fires a pulse, catches the reflection, and times the round trip. It projects a single dot, not a line, and the dot is only there so you know where you are aiming.
The confusion is understandable. Both are handheld, both cost roughly the same, both are sold in the same aisle, and both fire a red or green beam. But a laser level has no sensor and no timing circuit, so there is no mechanism by which it could tell you a distance. It is not a missing feature. The hardware is not there.
Look at the beam. A line or a cross means it is a level. A single dot with a display showing numbers means it is a measure. If the tool has a screen with feet and inches on it, it measures distance. If it has no screen at all, it does not.
Reach for a laser level when the job is alignment. Hanging a row of pictures, tiling a wall, installing cabinets at a consistent height, setting fence posts in a straight line, dropping a plumb point from a ceiling to a floor. The output is a line you work to, not a number you write down.
Reach for a laser measure when the job is a number. Room dimensions, square footage for flooring, a fence run for quoting, a ceiling height, a diagonal to check a room is square. The output is a figure you use in a calculation or an order.
Most people who do a reasonable amount of work end up owning both, and they rarely substitute for each other. The overlap is close to zero.
Two things muddy it.
The first is search results and product listings. Search for laser measuring tools and you get both categories mixed together, often with titles that use the words interchangeably. In our own product research, several listings that appeared under laser measure searches turned out to be self levelling line lasers, laser levels with tripods, or in one case a laser guide for a mitre saw. If you are shopping, read past the title to the specification and look for a stated measuring range in feet.
The second is that some tools genuinely do both, and they muddy the water further. There are combination units with a distance meter and a cross line projector in one body, and several appear in the budget end of the market. They are a reasonable buy if you want both functions cheaply, but they tend to do neither as well as a dedicated tool, and the line projection in particular is usually much dimmer than a proper level.
Green appears in both categories and means the same thing in both: the human eye is roughly four times more sensitive to green light than red at the same power, so the beam is easier to see.
On a laser level that matters a lot, because you are looking at the line continuously while you work, often across a bright room. On a laser measure it matters less than people expect, because you only need to see the dot for a moment while aiming, and past about thirty feet you often cannot see it at all regardless of colour. One tradesperson put it plainly in a discussion about which to buy: the green versus red question is really a laser level question, and for distance measurement it matters much less.
That is broadly right, with one exception. Outdoors in sunlight, a green dot is meaningfully easier to place on a target, which is why green units dominate the outdoor recommendations. The green beam question is covered in full in the buying guide.
Buy the laser measure. Not because it is the better tool, but because the alternative to a laser measure is a tape measure and a second person, while the alternative to a laser level is a spirit level and a chalk line, which is a far smaller downgrade.
A four foot spirit level and a chalk line will get you a straight run of tile. Nothing in a normal toolbox gets you an accurate forty foot diagonal on your own. If you are starting from scratch, the main guide covers what to do with it.
If the question is really how to choose a laser measure rather than this specific tool, our front page is the better starting point.