XML and HTML come from the same family of markup languages, but they serve different purposes. HTML focuses on presentation, while XML focuses on data meaning.
| Feature | HTML | XML |
|---|---|---|
| Purpose | Display content | Store and describe data |
| Tag set | Predefined | User-defined |
| Syntax | Flexible | Strict |
| Case sensitivity | Not case-sensitive | Case-sensitive |
For example:
<p>Title: Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets</p>is HTML that shows text on a page, while
<title>Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets</title>is XML that describes the data itself.
The tags in HTML are pre-defined; a <p> tag will always be a paragraph tag. In XML, these tags are defined by the user.
Developers often use the two together: XML for storing structured content and HTML/CSS for presenting it visually.
Sources: W3Schools MDN TutorialsPoint