Microsoft Foundry SDK vs. Foundry Tools SDKs

When developing with Microsoft Foundry, two similar terms can easily cause confusion: Microsoft Foundry SDK and Foundry Tools SDKs. Both help developers integrate AI into applications, but they operate at different levels.

The key difference

The Microsoft Foundry SDK provides access to the broader Foundry platform and its project-level capabilities. Foundry Tools SDKs, on the other hand, are specialized SDKs for individual AI services and capabilities.

	Microsoft Foundry SDK	Foundry Tools SDKs
Purpose	Work with the Foundry platform	Use a specific AI capability
Scope	Broad, project-level	Specialized, service-level
Typical capabilities	Models, agents, evaluations, project resources	Speech, Language, Content Safety, Document Intelligence
Best suited for	Building complete AI applications and agents	Adding a particular AI feature to an application
Access	Foundry project endpoint	Typically service-specific APIs and endpoints

Microsoft Foundry SDK

A unified SDK for building applications with Microsoft Foundry and accessing project capabilities such as models, agents, evaluations, and tools.

For example, an application that uses a GPT model together with an AI agent and evaluations would typically use the Microsoft Foundry SDK.

Foundry Tools SDKs

Specialized SDKs for integrating individual Foundry AI services into applications.

For example, an application might use the Speech SDK to convert audio into text or Document Intelligence to extract structured information from documents.

In short

A simple way to remember the distinction is:

Foundry SDK = work with the AI platform
Foundry Tools SDKs = use a specialized AI capability

The two approaches are complementary rather than competing: a solution can use the Foundry SDK for its overall AI architecture while also integrating specialized Foundry Tools where needed.

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