SDK

What Is an SDK?

A software development kit (SDK) is a collection of tools that enable developers to build more quickly for a particular platform or service without having to reinvent every building block. In practice, an SDK often consists of one or more client libraries plus documentation and example code, and sometimes debuggers or configuration tools—all optimised for a specific OS, framework, or API.

While an API documents what you can call and how the request/response should look, the SDK documents how you should use that API in a given language. It abstracts away much of the HTTP plumbing, request authentication boilerplate and data management so developers can write “normal” code rather than mixing-and-matching raw requests.

How do they work in chat and live experiences?

In in-app chat and live experience products, SDKs usually do more than just wrap API calls. A typical chat SDK might provide:

• A platform-specific client library (for example, for iOS, Android or JavaScript).
• Pre-built UI components such as a message list, composer, reactions, threads and typing indicators.
• Helpers for state management, theming and real-time updates.

Difference between SDK and API, iFrame and WebView

An SDK is just one of a handful of paths to integration that a team can take:

• API—the low-level contract: URLs, methods, payloads, auth. You can call it from any backend or a service that makes HTTP requests.
• SDK—a higher-level toolkit that wraps those APIs for your particular language or platform, frequently with UI building blocks thrown in.
• iFrame / WebVie—rather than constructing a UI locally, you place a previously developed web surface (eg, a full-fledged chat or community panel) into your web page or native app, typically using an embedded iframe on the web or a webview in mobile apps.

For social and real-time features, teams often stack these layers on top of each other, embedded chat or community surface for speed of launch, APIs for deeper automation and analytics and SDKs when they need a fully native UX or tight control over client-side behaviour.

Read what the main chat features are and how to implement chat inside your game.