What are the best IDEs for Android development?

Question

15

Options
Considered

841

User
Recs.

Feb 11, 2021

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

The Best 2 of 14 OptionsWhy?

Best IDEs for Android development	Price	Price	Latest Version
92 IntelliJ IDEA	-	-	-
91 Android Studio	-	Free	3.6 (Stable), 3.6 RC 3 (Preview)
84 NetBeans IDE	-	-	-
-- Visual Studio Code	FREE	-	-
73 Xamarin.Android	-	-	-

See Full List

Android Studio

Top Pro

Officially supported by Google

Android Studio is the software built by Google themselves to be used for Android Development. As such, it's certain that support for it will never drop as long as Android apps are still being developed. Studio is also the tool that Google recommends using for Android development and it's the IDE that gets updates related to Android first. See More

Top Con

High memory use

Winnie Brockett's Experience

The fastest developer tools for building market-leading apps and accelerating performance. See More

Specs

Price:Free

Latest Version :3.6 (Stable), 3.6 RC 3 (Preview)

Top Pro

Based on the powerful IntelliJ IDEA

Unlike its predecessor, which is based off Eclipse, Android Studio is build on top of Jetbrain's Flagship Java IDE which offers over a number of features. It's also open-source too (Community Edition only). See More

Top Con

Many errors that are almost impossible to remove

Gradle sync fail Render problem Class can't be found Layout Reinstall repository Update SDK (even with latest version) See More

FlexibleVicaPota's Experience

A lot issues with graddle. IDE have much more trouble than benefits See More

Top Pro

Live code updates and renderings of app

Layouts are built and can be observed in real time and are automatically updated after every change. You can even see these changes on different screens. See More

Top Con

Apps run slow on the ARM version of the emulator

While the Android team have recently fixed issues that had to do with emulation on an x86 architecture and greatly improving emulator speeds, emulating an Android device and running apps on an ARM architecture is still pretty slow. See More

ahmet mutlu's Experience

its too complex automated features are too primitive. wastes too much resources that can be done without and not actually necessary. not fast enought. cause too much errors . feels like its not designed to simplify the build process but make it much more complex the actually it is. See More

Top Pro

Extremely easy to integrate Google Services

Because it's made by Google to be the tool to be used for Android Development, it's also very easy for Google to add great support for their services in the IDE and make it easier to integrate Google Services into Android applications built with Studio. See More

Top Con

Many offline issues

Jose Rus's Experience

Every new update breaks something. Gradle errors are frequent and time consuming to resolve, it's not unusual to lose hours fixing errors that have nothing to do with your code. Maintaining versions using gitHub or similar is also a pain since merging different branches seem to break everything. Memory use is often insane, dragging down performance every time you click "build" See More

Top Pro

Pushes fast to the built-in emulator

Pushing to the built-in Android emulator can be up to 10 times faster than pushing to a physical device. See More

Top Con

Android development only

Android Studio is the official IDE for Android and it works great as an Android IDE. Unfortunately, that's the only thing it can do. If you want to develop applications for other platforms in Java, you have to learn another IDE as well. See More

CleverKekuit's Experience

I love to be naked and nude See More

Top Pro

Intelligently replaces values

References are automatically replaced with their real values, so you can easily view which color you are using for example. See More

AmbitiousHermus's Experience

many errors shown,also too slow y need powerfull machine See More

Top Pro

Extremely fast preview

Since Android 2.0, Google have been focusing more and more on the IDE's speed, going so far as making it 2-2.5 times faster than older versions. But the greatest feature when it comes to speed though is the new feature called "Instant Run". This is comparable to writing HTML, where you write the HTML and just refresh te page to see the changes. On mobile though, updating anything would take a lot of time for the system to rebuild. Instant Run allows developers to build their app once (on physical devices, emulator or both) and as they change their code, AS does hot code swapping where it only updates the parts of the code that have been changed and the developer can see those changes after a second or two. See More

HonestNebethetepet's Experience

Android development is easy with Android studio See More

Top Pro

Supports many platforms

Linux, Windows, and Mac are supported. See More

CreativeSunWukong's Experience

I have 8Gb ram and I5 processor and my pc freeze when I use android.The ide use too much ram. See More

Top Pro

Can test Google Play Services API straight from the emulator

Since the built-in emulator has Google Play Services like a physical device, you can test a lot of API calls without having to deploy your application to a device. See More

CapableSerapis's Experience

Slow, overly complex See More

Top Pro

Uses the powerful Gradle build tool out of the box

Android Studio uses Gradle as the official build tool for projects, moving away from the now outdated Apache Ant. Gradle is a powerful build tool, especially for Android development with which it's very easy to do things that are otherwise impossible or very hard to do on other build systems, thing like: upgrading the build system without breaking the project itself or allowing you to separately define the development and production versions. See More

Top Pro

Allows GPU tracking

For graphics-intensive apps or games, Android Studio has a GPU profiler baked in. With this you can see exactly what is happening inside the device when a new image is drawn on the screen. See More

Top Pro

It supports naked

See All

12 Other Options Considered

NetBeans IDE

Top Pro

Cross-platform

NetBeans is a free, GPL-licensed IDE. It can run on any computer with a Java virtual machine. If a computer has a Java virtual machine (JVM), Netbeans can run on it. Netbeans can, therefore, run on a variety of operating systems such as Windows, *nix, and Mac OS. See More

Top Con

Very complicated user interface and setup

StrongHestia's Experience

Very easy ui, Don't need a ton of external plugin to be able to run Ok with a small machine (netbeans 12) See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac, BSD

Top Pro

Easy to learn

Very easy to learn, unlike e.g. Eclipse (which is probably the most flexible). See More

Top Con

Little support for UML

Unless you load extensions. See More

MagicalKishar's Experience

Very complicated UI and how to set. See More

Top Con

Slow

The Netbeans IDE is known to take a large memory as compared to other lighter IDE's available on the market. The slowdown can decrease productivity and frustrate programmers. See More

See All

Visual Studio Code

Top Pro

Extendable through plug-ins

Visual Studio Code comes fairly complete out of the box, but there are many plug-ins available to extend its functionality. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, macOS, Linux

Auto Complete:Yes

Multi Language Support:Yes

License:MIT

Top Pro

Fast and powerful

VS-Code has the speed of Sublime and the power of WebStorm. Perhaps this is the best software that Microsoft has ever created. See More

Top Pro

Updated frequently

There's a new release of Visual Studio Code every month. If you are one of the insiders then releases are daily. See More

Top Pro

Great performance

For a 'wrapped' web-based application, Visual Studio Code performs very well. See More

Top Pro

Libre/open source

Released under the MIT License. See More

Top Pro

Huge community behind it

The ease of getting assistance and finding tutorials is increasing as the community grows. See More

Top Pro

Integrated task runners

Task runners display lists of available tasks and performing these tasks is as simple as a click of the mouse. See More

Top Pro

Ready to use out of the box

You don't need to configure and add plugins before being productive. However, you can add plugins if needed but for the basics you're well covered. See More

Top Pro

Inline definition picking and usages finding

These features allow you to have a glance at code without opening it as a whole in a separate tab. Moreover, editing is allowed. See More

See All

Xamarin.Android

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Xamarin is a platform on which you can build cross-platform mobile applications for Android, iOS and Windows Mobile and use only one codebase. See More

Top Con

Lacking third-party library support

Having to use third-party libraries in Xamarin can be a real pain. Since Xamarin uses C# and third-party libraries are written in Java, you have to create bindings to use them in a Xamarin app. Which is cumbersome and wastes a lot of time. Especially considering that the Xamarin docs are not very good when it comes to this part. See More

Specs

Cross Platform:Yes

Top Pro

Allows .NET programmers to write Android Apps

Allows .NET programmers to write Android Apps. See More

Top Con

Too large to download

Since core Visual Studio comes about in 543 MB of download size, the Mobile App Development with C++ workload comes about ~4 GB, the issues with your bandwidth and internet connection can cause the components to re-download, wasting a considerable amount of internet. See More

Top Pro

Fast build

Faster compared to Gradle-based systems. See More

Top Pro

Programming in C#

Allows you to write your programs in C#, a language much superior to Java, regarding expressiveness, readability and overall productivity. See More

Top Pro

Open source

Xamarin.Android and the whole Xamarin SDK is free and open source and released under the MIT license. See More

See All

Eclipse Che

Top Con

Slow runtime

Online IDE is much slower than desktop one. See More

Top Pro

Docker runtimes

You can choose from pre-configured environments for Java, Javascript, C++, PHP, C#, etc., or you can define your own by dropping in a Dockerfile - makes it easy for simple and complex projects. See More

MagicalKishar's Experience

The worst debugger ever. A lot of wrong errors cannot be removed. A very weak debugger and mobile platform. numerous bugs. See More

Top Con

Weak debugger

A lot of false errors cannot be removed. See More

Top Pro

SSH + terminal

Built-in terminal with root access so you can make changes to your running machines. Being able to SSH into the workspace so you can use a desktop IDE is handy. See More

Top Con

You cannot live-preview your apps

As Che is a cloud IDE, you cannot do much as with a desktop IDE. See More

Top Pro

GIT and SVN VCS support

Projects can be easily imported from any Git or Svn repository hosting service. See More

Top Pro

Android Development is now supported

Eclipse Che has a prebuilt stack just for Android that includes JDK and Gradle. See More

See All

Qt Creator

Platforms:Linux; Windows; MacOS

Cross Platform:Yes

Auto Complete:yes

Integrated Debugger:yes

See All Specs

Komodo IDE

Top Con

UX is hard to get acquainted with

You may struggle with learning how to do split-editing on this IDE. See More

Top Pro

Supports a variety of languages

Komodo supports JavaScript ,TypeScript, LESS, CSS, C++ and many others. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows; OSX; Linux

Cross Platform:Yes

Auto Complete:Yes

Multi Language Support:Yes

See All Specs

Top Con

Expensive

While the IDE is full-featured, the license for it is relatively expensive. See More

Top Pro

Easy app development with Apache Cordova

Application Development can be easy with the integration of Cordova. Cordova is a Cross-Platform application framework, Similar to React Native and many others. See More

See All

Eclipse + Android Development Tools plugin

Top Pro

Good offline capabilities

Top Con

A lot of bugs and weak debugger

False errors cannot be removed. See More

MagicalKishar's Experience

A lot of bugs and weak debugger. false errors cannot be removed See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Mac(OS), Linux

Top Pro

Free and open source

Eclipse is a free and open source software, it's released under the Eclipse Public license. See More

Top Con

Plugins can be unstable

Though there are plenty of plugins to choose from, they aren't always reliable. Some aren't maintained, bug fixes can be slow, and you may need to download plugins from multiple sources. See More

Top Pro

Java programming language and XML editors

Has full support for both Java and XML. See More

Top Con

May lose support in the future

Google recommends moving away from Eclipse for Android Development, plugins and features are adopted much later from Eclipse than from Android Studio or IntelliJ IDEA and in the future the ADT plugin may be abandoned altogether. See More

Top Pro

Large selection of plugins

Eclipse has a large and active community, which has resulted in a wide variety of plugins. See More

Top Pro

Graphical interface

ADT provides GUI access to many of the command line SDK. See More

Top Pro

Highly customizable

Thanks to the large variety of plugins and various configuration options, Eclipse is very customizable. See More

Top Pro

Good font rendering

Because Eclipse is based on SWT, it uses the native font rendering and thus looks better than other IDEs on some Linux systems, where the Java font rendering is not optimal. See More

See All

b4a

Top Pro

Fast and easy to learn

TolerantRaediengiedte's Experience

Astrology software See More

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Ionic Framework

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IntelliJ IDEA

Top Pro

Free version available

There is a free community edition (partly open source) and an ultimate edition, which you can compare here. The ultimate edition is available for free for one year for students but must be registered through an .edu e-mail account. See More

Top Con

Community version is partly closed source

It is claimed to be open source software, however it is ridden with binary files that don't have their source code available. This makes it non-free (as in freedom) software. Attempting to compile the software without them, when successful, renders the software practially useless as most features just don't work. See More

WiseZisa's Experience

I develop with PHPStorm and WebStorm and IntelliJ and the environments are for pro develop apps. See More

Top Pro

Stable and robust

If any file was corrupted by the IDE you don't have to restart your project. See More

Top Con

Built with closed source components

The version with full features is not opensource. Parts of the code are under apache licence though. See More

LikableHoenir's Experience

Fast, responsive interface and plugins function properly. BEST plugins for Java post build. See More

Top Pro

Smart refactorings

IDEA places an emphasis in safe refactoring, offering a variety of features to make this possible for a variety of languages. These features include safe delete, type migration and replacing method code duplicates. See More

Top Con

Somewhat expensive

IntelliJ IDEA is fairly expensive, with a pricetag of $149/year. However there is a free community edition available. See More

MellowGalene's Experience

Really well done IDE. I love it See More

Top Pro

Fast and smart contextual assistance

Uses a fast indexing technique to provide contextual hints (auto-completion, available object members, import suggestions). On-the-fly code analysis to detect errors and propose refactorization. See More

Top Con

Slow startup

Startup can be slow depending on system configuration. See More

EarnestSemele's Experience

8 years as Java and Android developer See More

Top Pro

Intuitive and slick UI

IDEA has a clean, intuitive interface with some customization available (such as the Darcula theme). See More

Top Con

Cannot open multiple projects in the same window

AdaptableFufluns's Experience

it's so good See More

Top Pro

Clear and detailed documentation

The documentation is exhaustive, easy to navigate and clearly worded. See More

Top Con

Uses too much RAM

Top Pro

Lots of plugins

Many plugins are available for almost any task a developer may need to cover. Plugins are developed by Jetbrains themselves or by 3rd parties through the SDK available for writing them. See More

Top Con

Availability unreliable

Often fails to download, the Jetbrains site makes no recommendations for mirrors either. How they expect to distribute software like that is a mystery. See More

Top Pro

Many convenient features

These simplify the daily work, e.g. copy/cut a whole line without the need to select it. See More

Top Pro

Very powerful debugger

It has the ability to step into a certain part of a large method invocation (Shift+F7), dropping frames, executing code snippets, showing method return values, etc. See More

Top Pro

Android support, JavaEE support, etc.

A very complete development environment support. See More

Top Pro

Hassle-free experience

Many other products just have so many bugs, gotchas, etc. The price is well worth the savings in headaches and problems. See More

Top Pro

Fast and smart contextual assistance

Uses a fast indexing technique to provide contextual hints (auto-completion, available object members, import suggestions). On-the-fly code analysis to detect errors and propose refactorization. See More

Top Pro

Built-in Git support

Top Pro

Gradle support

Top Pro

Support for many languages

IntelliJ supports many languages besides Java, some of these are: golang, Scala, Clojure, Groovy, Bash, etc. See More

See All

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The Best 2 of 14 OptionsWhy?

My Recommendation for IntelliJ IDEA

My Recommendation for IntelliJ IDEA

Free version available

Community version is partly closed source

Stable and robust

Built with closed source components

Smart refactorings

Somewhat expensive

Fast and smart contextual assistance

Slow startup

Intuitive and slick UI

Cannot open multiple projects in the same window

Clear and detailed documentation

Uses too much RAM

Lots of plugins

Availability unreliable

Many convenient features

Very powerful debugger

Android support, JavaEE support, etc.

Hassle-free experience

Fast and smart contextual assistance

Built-in Git support

Gradle support

Support for many languages

My Recommendation for Android Studio

My Recommendation for Android Studio

Officially supported by Google

High memory use

Based on the powerful IntelliJ IDEA

Many errors that are almost impossible to remove

Live code updates and renderings of app

Apps run slow on the ARM version of the emulator

Extremely easy to integrate Google Services

Many offline issues

Pushes fast to the built-in emulator

Android development only

Intelligently replaces values

Extremely fast preview

Supports many platforms

Can test Google Play Services API straight from the emulator

Uses the powerful Gradle build tool out of the box

Allows GPU tracking

It supports naked

12 Other Options Considered

My Recommendation for NetBeans IDE

My Recommendation for NetBeans IDE

Cross-platform

Very complicated user interface and setup

Easy to learn

Little support for UML

Slow

My Recommendation for Visual Studio Code

My Recommendation for Visual Studio Code

Extendable through plug-ins

Fast and powerful

Updated frequently

Great performance

Libre/open source

Huge community behind it

Integrated task runners

Ready to use out of the box

Inline definition picking and usages finding

My Recommendation for Xamarin.Android

My Recommendation for Xamarin.Android

Cross-platform

Lacking third-party library support

Allows .NET programmers to write Android Apps

Too large to download

Fast build

Programming in C#

Open source

My Recommendation for AIDE

My Recommendation for AIDE

Calculates multiple checksums

Checksums stored in plaintext

Supports complicated file excludes

My Recommendation for RAD studio

My Recommendation for RAD studio

Latest and greatest cross platform compiler for delphi