object and type

Every class is an instance of its metaclass. The default metaclass is type. You can use this knowledge to check if something is a class or is an instance:

class A: pass
isinstance(A, type)   # True
isinstance(A(), type) # False

However, class and instance are both an instance of object!

isinstance(A(), object) # True
isinstance(A, object)   # True

This is because type an instance of object and subclass of object at the same time, and object is an instance of type and has no parent classes.

isinstance(type, object) # True
issubclass(type, object) # True
type(type)      # type
type(object)    # type
type.__mro__    # (type, object)
object.__mro__  # (object,)