Homing endonucleases differ from Type II restriction enzymes in the several respects:
* Whereas Type II restriction enzymes bind short, usually symmetric, recognition sequences of 4 to 8 bp, homing endonucleases bind very long and in many cases asymmetric recognition sequences spanning 12 to 40 bp.
* Homing endonucleases are generally more tolerant of substitutions in the recognition sequence. Minor variations in the recognition sequence usually decrease the activity of homing endonucleases, but often do not completely abolish it as often occurs with restriction enzymes.
* Homing endonucleases share structural motifs that suggest there are four families, whereas it has not been possible to determine simply recognisable and distinguishable families of Type II restriction enzymes.
* Homing endonucleases act as monomers or homodimers, and often require associated proteins to regulate their activity  or form ribonucleoprotein complexes, wherein RNA is an integral component of the catalytic apparatus. Type II restriction enzymes can also function alone, as monomers or homodimers, or with additional protein subunits, but the accessory subunits differ from those of the homing endonucleases. Thus, they can require restriction, modification, and specificity subunits for their action.
* Finally, homing endonucleases have a broader phylogenetic distribution, occurring in all three biological domains—the archaea, bacteria and eukarya.  Type II restriction enzymes occur only in archaea, bacteria and certain viruses. Homing endonucleases are also expressed in all three compartments of the eukaryotic cell: nuclei, mitochondria and chloroplasts. Open reading frames encoding homing endonucleases have been found in introns, inteins, and in freestanding form between genes, whereas genes encoding Type II restriction enzyme genes have been found only in freestanding form, almost always in close association with genes encoding cognate DNA modifying enzymes. Thus, while the Type II restriction enzymes and homing endonucleases share the function of cleaving double-stranded DNA, they appear to have evolved independently.