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androidandroid-fragmentsandroid-activitydifference

What are the differences between activity and fragment?

As per my research, there is a significant difference in the concept of backstack and how they exist:

Activity

  • When an activity is placed to the backstack of activities the user can navigate back to the previous activity by just pressing the back button.

  • Activity can exist independently.

Fragment

  • When an fragment is placed to the activity we have to request the instance to be saved by calling addToBackstack() during the fragment transaction.

  • Fragment has to live inside the activity

Are there any additional differences?

Solution

  • Those are two completely different things:

    An Activity is an application component that provides a screen, with which users can interact in order to do something. More details: https://developer.android.com/guide/components/activities/intro-activities

    Whereas a Fragment represents a behavior or a portion of user interface in an Activity. https://developer.android.com/guide/fragments