---
title: XML
slug: Glossary/XML
tags:
  - CodingScripting
  - Glossary
  - XML
  - l10n:priority
---
eXtensible Markup Language (XML) is a generic markup language specified by the W3C. The information technology (IT) industry uses many languages based on XML as data-description languages.

XML tags resemble HTML tags, but XML is much more flexible because it lets users define their own tags. In this way XML acts like a meta-language—that is, it can be used to define other languages, such as {{Glossary("RSS")}}. Moreover, HTML is a presentation language, whereas XML is a data-description language. This means that XML has far broader applications than just the Web. For example, Web services can use XML to exchange requests and responses.

## See also

- [XML introduction](/en-US/docs/Web/XML/XML_introduction)
