In the world of making computer programs, there are three important things called SDKs, libraries, and frameworks. They’re like special tools that help developers build software. Even though people often mix up these terms, they each have different jobs and are really important for making programs work well. In this article, we are going to learn SDK, Library, and Framework in detail and the differences between them.

SDK Vs Library Vs Framework

What is Software Development Kit?

The full form of SDK is the Software Development Kit. SDK or Software Development Kit is a complete collection of software tools and programs usually offered by hardware and software suppliers. SDKs are used by developers to create applications that are appropriate to specific platforms, such as operating systems or frameworks. An SDK’s primary objective is to provide developers with a ready-made set of resources that simplify and speed up the application development process. A Software Development Kit (SDK) consists of several key components that offer developers the tools and resources they need to create applications for a specific platform or framework.

What is Library?

A library provides a set of helper functions/objects/modules that your application code calls for specific functionality. Libraries typically focus on a narrow scope (e.g., strings, IO, sockets), so their API’s also tend to be smaller and require fewer dependencies. It is just a collection of class definitions. Why do we need them? The reason being very simple i.e. code reuse, use the code which has already been written by other developers. do , some library has a method named findLastIndex(char) to find the last index of a particular character in a string. We can straightaway call findLastIndex(charToFind) function of the library and pass the characters whose position we need to find as a parameter in the function call. 

What is Framework?

Framework, on the other hand, has defined open or unimplemented functions or objects that the user writes to create a custom application. (C++/Java users will understand this as it is much like implementing an abstract function). Because a framework is itself an application, it has a wider scope and includes almost everything necessary to make a user application as per his own needs.

Wikipedia makes it more clear: 

“In computer programming, a software framework is an abstraction in which software providing generic functionality can be selectively changed by additional user-written code, thus providing application-specific software” 

SDK(Software Development Kit) Vs Library Vs Framework