Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken in the state of Tamil Nadu, India, and in countries like Sri Lanka, Malaysia, and Singapore. Tamil Nadu, India, and Singapore use this language as their official language, whereas in countries like India, Tamil is usually considered as a classical language. Malayalam, on the other hand, shares so many similarities with Tamil since both belong to the Dravidian family.
One of the major differences between the two languages is that Malayalam looks very similar to Sanskrit than Tamil since there are some words in Malayalam that are borrowed from Sanskrit. Another difference is that Malayalam is spoken only in Lakshadweep and Kerala, India, while Tamil is a language spoken in different countries such as Malaysia, Singapore, etc.
The population of those who speak Tamil is higher than that of Malayalam. According to history, the origin of Tamil can be dated back to the 5th century B.C., whereas Malayalam started in the 10th century A.D.