ADOdb and PDO are both database abstraction libraries for PHP that allow developers to write database-independent code. ADOdb hides database specifics and provides a consistent API, additional functions, and better performance compared to PDO. Both libraries establish database connections using object-oriented methods and execute SQL queries by iterating through result sets. While PDO focuses only on basic data access and prepared statements, ADOdb offers more advanced features like pagination, blob handling, and error handling.