SDK vs API - What's the Difference?

Hello everyone! I'm Akash from Applozic, and today we'll take a look at what SDKs and APIs are, and how they differ from each other.

So, what is an SDK?

SDK stands for Software Development Kit. It is a collection of software development tools in one installable package. They facilitate the app development process.

So an SDK contains:

• Documents
• Code samples
• APIs
• Code libraries

Let’s now summarize how SDK works.

SDKs work with specific programming languages. They are easy to use because the goal is to make the jobs of developers easier, and save developers from writing code for already existing functionalities

Let’s have a look at some examples of SDK:

• A good example is Android SDK - they have all the elements needed to create the app such as sample source code, debugger, required libraries, amongst other things.
• Another example is Cloud SDK for Google Cloud Platforms - these contain tools that you need to manage applications and software in a Google Cloud Platform. Cloud SDK is a set of tools, including gcloud, gsutil, and bq command-line tools, client libraries & local emulators for developing with Google Cloud.

So we now know what an SDK is, let's move on to APIs. What exactly is an API?

APIs, which stand for Application Programming Interfaces, make the software development process easy by permitting a seamless and secure data transfer between two apps. It also helps to improve the exchange of functionality between two applications. So in essence, APIs allow two applications to talk to each other, relaying data from one end to another.

Let’s review some examples of APIs:

• Login with Facebook When using websites, you can often find the option to log in using your Facebook account. It means that the website uses Facebook Login API to integrate their service and help users skip the sign-up process.
• Third-Party Payments You can often see the payment options of PayPal, Apple Pay, or Google Pay. It means that the payment system integrates these services through API.

So, what are the key differences between SDKs and APIs?

Even though both concepts are indeed overlapped and interrelated, let's differentiate their purposes:

• An SDK is the toolbox you need to build applications while and API establishes communication between two applications;
• An SDK may contain APIs, but APIs cannot contain SDKs;
• SDKs are easy to use and faster to integrate while APIs don’t have code libraries and are easy to modify;
• SDKs contain all you need to communicate with another software and all you need to build software while APIs deliver a request from one app to another software and deliver a response back to the requesting app;
• Developers always use an SDK to build apps, but APIs only come in when there is a need to have external communication with other platforms.

In fact, APIs and SDKs are both solution-bringers to developers, but each one is special in its way.

So, is the difference clear now? If you have any doubts or queries about APIs or SDKs, feel free to drop a comment in the comment section below!