What is the difference between Sardines and Anchovies?

i will eat sardines in mustard out of a tin can in a new york minute. anchovies? well, maybe, but how about next time. it’s like that.

Sardines are just small fish fillets, usually in a kind of sauce (like @charliecompany34 says). They’re often eaten on their own.

Anchovies, smaller than sardines, are like little salt bombs, and I’m pretty sure people don’t eat them on their own. Usually I cook with them as an ingredient. I’ll use them in pasta sauce, especially, or anything that is well-served with a rich, salty addition. They dissolve, leaving behind not necessarily a fish flavor so much as just a rich, meaty umami flavor.

Sardines are a snack food, anchovies are an ingredient. :)

Anchovies from cans, which is almost the only way you can get then in this country, must be considered a condiment, or as laureth nicely puts it, an ingredient. But
fresh anchovies, and anchovies in jars, and big anchovies you can occasionally get in
plastic containers in specialty-store cold cases and called boquerones, are actual food.
They’re larger than the fillets you get in the cans, and extremely delicious. Not so salty;
more like pickled.
Sardines aren’t always fillets. Perhaps more often they’re headless, tailless, gutted whole fishes, sometimes packed in olive oil without further sauce, full of omega-3’s.

You can also eat them fresh, fried by the plateful in southern Portugal and similar places where they abound in the sea. They are extremely popular in this permutation because delicious.

Anchovies, as @laureth said, are sardines that are wicked salty. Not sure about the inner details, but my dad told me that when I gagged from eating anchovies for the first time (after saying that I liked sardines).