Difference between glycolysis and pentose phosphate pathway

Characteristics	Glycolysis	Pentose phosphate pathway
Types of pathway	Major energy yielding pathway for carbohydrate metabolism	Biosynthetic pathway to generates precursors for biosynthesis
End product	Pyruvic acid (aerobic), lactic acid (anaerobic)	Various intermediate precursors
Generation of energy rich molecule	NADH (which enters into Electron transport chain and generates 3 ATP)	NADPH (it is a reducing agent in biosynthesis)
NADPH	absent	present
Sugar intermediates generated	Triose (glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate, pyruvate) Hexose (glucose, fructose)	Triose (glyceraldehyde 3-phospahte) Tetrose (erythrose) Pentose (ribose, xylulose, ribulose) Hexose (glucose, fructose) and Heptose (sedoheptulose)
Further metabolism	End product of glycolysis enter into TCA cycle	End product of pentose phosphate pathway enter into glycolysis. So it is a shunt of glycolysis