What is the difference between a framework and a library

Question

What is the difference between a framework and a library    I always thought of a library as a set of objects and functions that focuses on solving a particular problem or a specific area of application development  i e  database access   and a framework on the other hand as a collection of libraries centered on a particular methodology  i e  MVC  and which covers all areas of application development

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This is how I think of it  and have seen rationalized by others    A library is something contained within your code   And a framework is a container for your application

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I think library is a set of utilities to reach a goal  for example  sockets  cryptography  etc   Framework is library   RUNTIME EINVIRONNEMENT  For example  ASP NET is a framework  it accepts HTTP requests  create page object  invoke lyfe cicle events  etc  Framework does all this  you write a bit of code which will be run at a specific time of the life cycle of current request   Anyway  very interestering question

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I forget where I saw this definition  but I think it s pretty nice   A library is a module that you call from your code  and a framework is a module which calls your code

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Libraries are for ease of use and efficiency You can say for example that Zend library helps us accomplish different tasks with its well defined classes and functions While a framework is something that usually forces a certain way of implementing a solution  like MVC Model-view-controller  reference   It is a well-defined system for the distribution of tasks like in MVC Model contains database side Views are for UI Interface  and controllers are for Business logic

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I don  t remember the source of this answer  I guess I found it in a  ppt in the internet   but the answer is quite simple   A Library and a Framework are a set of classes  modules and or code  depending of the programing language  that can be used in your applications and helps you to solve an especific  problem    That problem can be log or debuging info in an application  draw charts  create an specific file format  html  pdf  xls   connect to a data base  create a part of an application or a complete application or a code applied to a Design Pattern   You can have a Framework or a Library to solve all these problems and many more  normaly the frameworks helps you to solve more complex or bigger problems  but that a consecuence of their main difference  not a main definition for both      The main difference betwen a Library and a Framework is the dependency betwen their own code  in oder words to use a Framework you   need to use almost all the classes  modules or code in the FW  but to   use a Library you can use one or few classes  modules or code in the   lib in your own application   This means that if a Framework has  for example has 50 classes in order to use the framework in an app you need to use  let said  10-15 or more classes in your code  because that is how is designed a Framework  some classes  objects of that classes  are inputs parameters for methods in other classes in the framework  See the  NET framework  Spring  or any MVC framework   But for example a log library  you can just use a Log class in your code  and helps you to solve the  logging problem   that doesn  t mean that the log library doesn t have more classes in his code  like classes to handle files  handle screen outputs  or even data bases  but you never touch use that classes in your code  and that is the reason of why is a library and not a framework   And also there are more categories than Frameworks and Libraries  but that is off topic

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I like Cohens answer  but a more technical definition is  Your code calls a library  A framework calls your code  For example a GUI framework calls your code through event-handlers  A web framework calls your code through some request-response model    This is also called inversion of control - suddenly the framework decides when and how to execute you code rather than the other way around as with libraries  This means that a framework also have a much larger impact on how you have to structure your code

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You call Library   Framework calls you

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I will try to explain like you re five  Let s imagine that you had opened a burger restaurant in your city while ago  But you feel it s so hard to make a burger as a beginner  You were thinking about an easy way to make burgers for customers  Someone told you that there are McDonald Burger Framework and BurgerKing Burger Framework  If you use McDonald Burger Framework  It s so easy to make Big Mac burger   but you cannot make Whopper   If you use BurgerKing Burger Framework  It s so easy to make Whopper Burger   however  you cannot make Big Mac  Anyway  In the end  they are all burgers  An important thing here is  you have to follow their framework s rule to make burgers  otherwise  you feel even harder to make it or won t be able to make it  And you also heard that there is something called Simple Burger-Patty Library  If you use this Library  you can make whatever burger patty so easily  X2 speed   It doesn t really matter if you use McDonald Burger Framework or BurgerKing Burger Framework  Either way  you can still use this Simple Burger-Patty Library   Even you can use this Library without frameworks   Do you see the difference between Framework vs Library now   Once you started using McDonald Burger Framework  It would not be easy to switch to BurgerKing Burger Framework  Since you have to change the whole kitchen  But Library  It would be much easier to switch others  or you can just not to use it

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From Web developer perspective    Library can be easily replaceable by another library  But framework cannot   If you don t like jquery date picker library  you can replace with other date picker such as bootstrap date picker or pickadate   If you don t like AngularJS on which you built your product  you cannot just replace with any other frameworks  You have to rewrite your entire code base  Mostly library takes very less learning curve compared to Frameworks  Eg  underscore js is a library  Ember js is a framework

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Library   It is just a collection of routines  functional programming  or class definitions object oriented programming   The reason behind is simply code reuse  i e  get the code that has already been written by other developers  The classes or routines normally define specific operations in a domain specific area  For example  there are some libraries of mathematics which can let developer just call the function without redo the implementation of how an algorithm works    Framework   In framework  all the control flow is already there  and there are a bunch of predefined white spots that we should fill out with our code  A framework is normally more complex  It defines a skeleton where the application defines its own features to fill out the skeleton  In this way  your code will be called by the framework when appropriately  The benefit is that developers do not need to worry about if a design is good or not  but just about implementing domain specific functions    Library Framework and your Code image representation     KeyDifference   The key difference between a library and a framework is    Inversion of Control     When you call a method from a library  you are in control  But with a framework  the control is inverted  the framework calls you  Source   Relation   Both of them defined API  which is used for programmers to use  To put those together  we can think of a library as a certain function of an application  a framework as the skeleton of the application  and an API is connector to put those together  A typical development process normally starts with a framework  and fill out functions defined in libraries through API

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I think you pinned down quite well the difference  the framework provides a frame in which we do our work    Somehow  it is more  constraining  than a simple library  The framework is also supposed to add consistency to a set of libraries

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You call Library   Framework calls you

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As I ve always described it   A Library is a tool   A Framework is a way of life   A library you can use whatever tiny part helps you   A Framework you must commit your entire project to

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A framework can be made out of different libraries  Let s take an example   Let s say you want to cook a fish curry  Then you need ingredients like oil  spices and other utilities  You also need fish which is your base to prepare your dish on  This is data of your application    all ingredients together called a framework  Now you gonna use them one by one or in combination to make your fish curry which is your final product  Compare that with a web framework which is made out of underscore js  bootstrap css  bootstrap js  fontawesome  AngularJS etc  For an example  Twitter Bootstrap v 35   Now  if you consider only one ingredient  like say oil  You can t use any oil you want because then it will ruin your fish  data   You can only use Olive Oil  Compare that with underscore js  Now what brand of oil you want to use is up to you  Some dish was made with American Olive Oil  underscore js  or Indian Olive Oil  lodash js   This will only change taste of your application  Since they serve almost same purpose  their use depends on the developer s preference and they are easily replaceable           Framework   A collection of libraries which provide unique properties and behavior to your application   All ingredients       Library   A well defined set of instructions which provide unique properties and behavior to your data   Oil on Fish       Plugin   A utility build for a library  ui-router -  AngularJS  or many libraries in combination  date-picker -  bootstrap css   jQuery  without which your plugin might now work as expected      P S  AngularJS is a MVC framework but a JavaScript library  Because I believe Library extends default behavior of native technology  JavaScript in this case

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here is linked a bitter article by Joel Spolsky  but contains a good distinction between toolboxes  libraries  frameworks and such

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Actually these terms can mean a lot of different things depending the context they are used    For example  on Mac OS X frameworks are just libraries  packed into a bundle  Within the bundle you will find an actual dynamic library  libWhatever dylib   The difference between a bare library and the framework on Mac is that a framework can contain multiple different versions of the library  It can contain extra resources  images  localized strings  XML data files  UI objects  etc   and unless the framework is released to public  it usually contains the necessary  h files you need to use the library    Thus you have everything within a single package you need to use the library in your application  a C C   Objective-C library without  h files is pretty useless  unless you write them yourself according to some library documentation   instead of a bunch of files to move around  a Mac bundle is just a directory on the Unix level  but the UI treats it like a single file  pretty much like you have JAR files in Java and when you click it  you usually don t see what s inside  unless you explicitly select to show the content    Wikipedia calls framework a  buzzword   It defines a software framework as     A software framework is a re-usable   design for a software system  or   subsystem   A software framework may   include support programs  code   libraries  a scripting language  or   other software to help develop and   glue together the different components   of a software project  Various parts   of the framework may be exposed   through an API     So I d say a library is just that   a library   It is a collection of objects functions methods  depending on your language  and your application  links  against it and thus can use the objects functions methods  It is basically a file containing re-usable code that can usually be shared among multiple applications  you don t have to write the same code over and over again    A framework can be everything you use in application development  It can be a library  a collection of many libraries  a collection of scripts  or any piece of software you need to create your application  Framework is just a very vague term   Here s an article about some guy regarding the topic  Library vs  Framework   I personally think this article is highly arguable  It s not wrong what he s saying there  however  he s just picking out one of the multiple definitions of framework and compares that to the classic definition of library  E g  he says you need a framework for sub-classing  Really  I can have an object defined in a library  I can link against it  and sub-class it in my code  I don t see how I need a  framework  for that  In some way he rather explains how the term framework is used nowadays  It s just a hyped word  as I said before  Some companies release just a normal library  in any sense of a classical library  and call it a  framework  because it sounds more fancy

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I think that the main difference is that frameworks follow the  Hollywood principle   i e   don t call us  we ll call you    According to Martin Fowler      A library is essentially a set of   functions that you can call  these   days usually organized into classes    Each call does some work and returns   control to the client       A framework embodies some abstract   design  with more behavior built in    In order to use it you need to insert   your behavior into various places in   the framework either by subclassing or   by plugging in your own classes  The   framework s code then calls your code   at these points

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A library performs specific  well-defined operations   A framework is a skeleton where the application defines the  meat  of the operation by filling out the skeleton   The skeleton still has code to link up the parts but the most important work is done by the application   Examples of libraries  Network protocols  compression  image manipulation  string utilities  regular expression evaluation  math   Operations are self-contained   Examples of frameworks  Web application system  Plug-in manager  GUI system   The framework defines the concept but the application defines the fundamental functionality that end-users care about

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Your interpretation sounds pretty good to me    A library could be anything that s compiled and self-contained for re-use in other code  there s literally no restriction on its content   A framework on the other hand is expected to have a range of facilities for use in some specific arena of application development  just like your example  MVC

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A library implements functionality for a narrowly-scoped purpose whereas a framework tends to be a collection of libraries providing support for a wider range of features  For example  the library System Drawing dll handles drawing functionality  but is only one part of the overall  NET framework

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Library - Any set of classes or components that can be used as the client deems fit to accomplish a certain task  Framework - mandates certain guidelines for you to  plug-in  into something bigger than you  You merely provide the pieces specific to your application requirements in a published-required manner  so that  the framwework can make your life easy

[frameworks] What is the difference between a framework and a library?

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