okay i have been coding for like only 3 years but please please please

someone tell me the difference between an API and an SDK

bullets point comparisons only
warps to the most useful

Be specific.     

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I wanted to guess an answer but the last time I was a hands on developer, APIs were SOAP web services. 😳 Your answer is more or less what my understanding was, which makes my ego feel good today. Lol

This makes sense in principle
Thank you

I was looking at Airstack APISDK and they looked so similar but I can imagine for more complicated things there are bigger differences

Is it the case that if there is an SDK in your desired language, you should almost always use the SDK over the API?

An API allows you to use any programming language you want but you have to manage all the set up and boilerplate. 

And SDK is typically written for a specific language and abstracts away all of the boilerplate and setup. The SDK uses the API internally.

full stack web3 developer building cool shit and teaching others avneesh.tech

Thank you!

So an SDK should be fewer and/or less complicated lines of code?

What would be an example of boilerplate code?
Perhaps dealing with pagination in a big response?

APIs don’t have any language restrictions but SDKs do. 

SDKs have additional boilerplate code as functions which might not be worth making an API call.

SDKs usually have much better type support compared to APIs

Most sdks use certain APIs under the hood to improve the devx

api: the interface to any programmable thing
sdk: a toolkit, usually a set of libraries you can install.

casually though, people say “api” to mean “api accessible over http”.

an SDK is like a toolbox, and an API is an adapter for outlets.

SDKs can have APIs but not the other around.

an API gets you access and communication, an SDK gives you tools and frameworks.

API = rules for how to communicate with their code
SDK = prewritten code to copy-paste into your project

Now, what's the difference between an SDK and a library or package?