18

As far as i understood,

  • Google Drive API used to interact Google Drive with other application and
  • Google Drive SDK used to create custom applications which to be used with in the Drive.

Am i correct or if i wrong please tell me the difference of those two.

Thanks.

DarRay
  • 2,530
  • 6
  • 24
  • 38
  • It's the same as with others, I suppose: API is basically an interface to some component, and SDK is a collection of tools that use this interface. – raina77ow Oct 02 '12 at 09:09
  • 1
    Read the answer to this : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/834763/api-vs-sdk – User404 Oct 02 '12 at 09:22
  • Thanks for the comments. But I know the general meaning of both terms and their differences. What i need to know is whether there is any other specific meaning is for in the context of 'Google Drive'. This is not a general API vs. SDK question. I would like to know the answer from the person who familiar with Google Drive. – DarRay Oct 02 '12 at 09:35

3 Answers3

18

The Google Drive SDK is a layer around the Google Drive API; the SDK provides language-specific libraries, examples and guides to ease the development of apps that use the API.

Note that there are currently two versions of the API, with v2 being the current one. You will want to ensure that your chosen library supports the version you're targeting to access the correct set of features.

Ashley Ross
  • 2,275
  • 2
  • 22
  • 43
  • 13
    To add to Ashley's answer, another way of looking at it is API = REST, SDK = Java, Python, C# etc Some people prefer to do stuff by invoking methods on objects (SDK), whereas others prefer to assemble REST URLs and GET/POST/PUT/DELETE them by hand. In my experience, the APIs are much better documented than the SDK, which means you are forced to understand the API at the REST level, rather than rely on the SDK abstractions – pinoyyid Oct 02 '12 at 16:43
6

As a writer for the team that contributes content for the SDK, I hope I can provide DarRay the desired level of Google Drive familiarity. Ashley's answer is correct -- we think of the SDK as the group of APIs for Drive, along with the client libraries, the examples, and all the rest.

Eric Gilmore
  • 195
  • 1
  • 3
2

This shows up while setting up project in Google Developer Console -

Drive SDK vs Drive APIs

nightlytrails
  • 2,134
  • 2
  • 18
  • 26