Emulator VS Simulator

Both the emulators and simulators are used for testing and research to mimic the behavior of a specific hardware or software environment.

Emulator

Emulators are used to mimic the behavior of a hardware environment. In simple terms, it looks like the software is running on the intended machine, but in actuality, we are simulating the hardware environment for the software to run.

Its main purpose is to run software from one platform to another without building the actual target machine. Emulators are built with the aim of mimicking the functionality and the internal state of the real system. It may be slow in working as compared to the target system.

For example, Android Studio is used for mobile development, gaming emulators for playing console games on laptops and PCs, etc.

Simulator

Simulators are used to mimic the overall behavior of the system irrespective of its hardware architecture. It focuses mainly on replicating the external behavior and response of the software.

It is built to reproduce a high-level behavior of the expected response, not for precise representation. It might be faster as compared to the real system as it is intended to mimic the crust part, skipping the complex calculations and functionality.

For example, flight simulators are used to train pilots without actually flying a plane.