| It is a standard programming interface that allows accessing business processes as well as data for external applications in the R/3 system | It is a standard SAP interface for communicating between various SAP systems |
| Used to access SAP functions across stable, formal, and dialogue-free interfaces | It is used to call the function modules that reside on various machines |
| Success or error message will be returned on a RETURN table | It does not have a RETURN table |
| It allows connecting with the SAP for the outside world(VB, .NET, JAVA, or any Non-SAP system) | It does not ALLOW the Non-SAP world to be connected to SAP |
| A business object is associated with it | No business object is associated with it |
