# What's the difference between StarkNet contract and Cairo programs (using SHARP)? **URL:** \ **Category:** Support\ **Created:** [October 28, 2021, 8:11am UTC](https://community.starknet.io/t/whats-the-difference-between-starknet-contract-and-cairo-programs-using-sharp/23 "2021-10-28T08:11:33Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 1\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![henrli](https://dub1.discourse-cdn.com/flex005/user_avatar/community.starknet.io/henrli/32/6_2.png) [@henrli](https://community.starknet.io/u/henrli)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2021, 8:11am UTC](https://community.starknet.io/t/whats-the-difference-between-starknet-contract-and-cairo-programs-using-sharp/23/1 "2021-10-28T08:11:33Z")
_Cairo_ is a language that lets you prove that a certain computation was done correctly (computational integrity). A Cairo program is stateless. In particular, you don’t have native access to storage, to other Caoro programs, or to L1 state (although you _can_ use those things, as explained below). A Cairo program is sent to the SHARP system (Shared Prover) and then a fact attesting to the correctness of the computation is registered on-chain. Then an L1 contract can query this fact and use it as if it did the computation itself. You can read more here: > **[Building a Scalable Cairo-Based Automated Market Maker (AMM) - Cairo](https://www.cairo-lang.org/build-a-scalable-cairo-basesd-automated-market-maker/)** > > Use Cairo, Solidity and Python to build a scalable Cairo-based Automated Market Maker from scratch - we take you through this process step-by-step _StarkNet_ is a system where you can write & deploy contracts (written in the Cairo programming language, with some StarkNet-related modification). Unlike Cairo programs, StarkNet contracts do have access to contract storage, can interact with other contracts, and send/receive messages to/from L1. You can read more here: [https://www.cairo-lang.org/docs/hello\_starknet/index.html](https://www.cairo-lang.org/docs/hello_starknet/index.html)