These transports are not in any way limited to Modbus, of course. Of the two, Modbus using the RS-485 protocol is more common than RS-232 due to its support for multi-drop communication. Modbus Remote Monitoring and Control traditionally uses RS-232 and RS-485 Modbus communication protocols for collecting data from Modbus slaves. Brief Overview of Modbus RS-232 and RS-485
If you're asking yourself what the Modbus and RS-485 difference (or RS-232) is, let's start by understanding that Modbus is a protocol for Modbus messages.