MLA format: is normally used in literature and composition fields. It relies on in-text citations, it doesn't use endnotes or footnotes typically. For in-text citation, the format is (author's last name + page number) without a comma.
APA format: is common for term papers, essays, scientific papers. It uses an author-date reference citation system, in-text with a reference list accompanying. This means that the writer needs to cite the author and year of the work by putting them both in parentheses (separated by a comma) or putting the author in the narrative and year in parenthesis. For the references list the writer needs to follow the pattern author, date, title, source, for example, for journal articles the template is: Author, A., & Author, B. (year). Title of the article. Journal Title, Volume, page range. DOI
Some differences we can find are:
Where these kinds of citing are used, MLA is used in literature and APA in more scientific documents.
The use of reference lists to accompany in-text citations, in MLA this list is not used contrary to APA format.
The format of in-text citation, APA uses author and year, MLA uses author and page number)
