While dark matter does appear to be a real physical thing we just can’t detect very well (since we can roughly detect where it is and isn’t, and it sometimes shows up where ordinary matter is absent, or is absent where ordinary matter is), I’m not totally convinced that dark energy is actually physical energy – the same effects could potentially be explained by some as-yet undiscovered property of spacetime itself, without any unseen ‘energy’ causing it to do that.
While dark matter does appear to be a real physical thing we just can’t detect very well (since we can roughly detect where it is and isn’t, and it sometimes shows up where ordinary matter is absent, or is absent where ordinary matter is), I’m not totally convinced that dark energy is actually physical energy – the same effects could potentially be explained by some as-yet undiscovered property of spacetime itself, without any unseen ‘energy’ causing it to do that.