Attributes consist of a named pair attached to an element start-tag. An example of how an attribute is:Image

Elements can be parents of other elements and/or attributes and can be repeated within the same level of an XML document. They also usually have start and end tags. An element would look like:Image

Elements can be defined to be in a certain order, while attributes can appear in any order

Elements can occur more than once (repeating) within the same level, while attributes can only appear once within the same level

Elements can contains another element but attributes won't.