Overview

Android SDK

Stacks27.4K

Followers20.7K

Votes800

Android Studio

Stacks25.7K

Followers20.3K

Votes361

Android SDK vs Android Studio: What are the differences?

The Android SDK (Software Development Kit) and Android Studio are essential tools for developing Android applications. Let's explore the key differences between them.

Installation Process: The Android SDK is an essential component for Android app development and needs to be installed separately before setting up Android Studio. On the other hand, Android Studio is a comprehensive integrated development environment (IDE) that includes the Android SDK along with other tools and features, making it a one-stop solution for Android app development.
User Interface: The Android SDK provides a command-line interface and various tools to build, debug, and test Android applications. It offers flexibility and control over the development process but requires manual configuration and setup. In contrast, Android Studio provides a user-friendly graphical interface, which includes a code editor, layout editor, and an emulator, simplifying the development process and enhancing productivity.
Code Editor: The Android SDK allows developers to use any code editor of their choice for writing Android applications. It provides libraries, APIs, and command-line tools to build and test apps. On the other hand, Android Studio has its own powerful code editor with features like code completion, debugging, and refactoring tools. It offers a seamless development experience by integrating all the necessary tools within the IDE.
Project Structure: The Android SDK requires developers to manually set up the project structure and manage dependencies. This gives them more control and flexibility over the project configuration. In contrast, Android Studio sets up the project structure automatically, managing dependencies through its built-in Gradle build system. This simplifies the project setup process and reduces the time required for configuration.
Additional Features: One of the key advantages of using Android Studio over the Android SDK is the availability of additional features. Android Studio provides various tools like a layout editor, APK analyzer, built-in emulator, and an advanced profiler. These features aid in designing layouts, analyzing APK performance, testing apps, and optimizing code.
Plugin Support: Android SDK allows developers to use external plugins and libraries to enhance their development process. It offers flexibility and customization options by allowing developers to choose and integrate the plugins of their choice. In contrast, Android Studio comes with a wide range of built-in plugins and supports third-party plugins from its plugin marketplace. This reduces the effort required to find and integrate external plugins efficiently.

In summary, while the Android SDK is a fundamental component for Android app development, Android Studio provides an integrated development environment with a user-friendly interface, automatic project setup, advanced features, and plugin support, making it a preferred choice for developers seeking a comprehensive development solution.

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Advice on Android SDK, Android Studio

Omran

CTO & Co-founder at Bonton Connect

Jun 19, 2020

Needs adviceon

Kotlin

We actually initially wrote a lot of networking code in Kotlin but the complexities involved prompted us to try and compile NodeJS for Android and port over all the networking logic to Node and communicate with node over the Java Native Interface.

This turned out to be a great decision considering our battery usage fell by 40% and rate of development increased by a factor of 2.

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Comments

William

Sep 10, 2019

Needs advice

The problem I have is whether to choose Android Studio or Visual Studio? I have to develop a simple app for a school project that can work on both iPhone and Android.

The most important factors for me are Android and iOS compatibility. Although note that i would like to become a Software Engineer when i finish my course. (I'd like to work for Apple, just saying!)

After that id like easy integration for Google Ads and such if i do develop another app that people actually use to support development. (I'd also like to stick with one easy programming language that's compatible with a wide variety of platforms since i'm a beginner and have only ever used Pascal)

565k views565k

Comments

Detailed Comparison

Android SDK	Android Studio
Android provides a rich application framework that allows you to build innovative apps and games for mobile devices in a Java language environment.	Android Studio is a new Android development environment based on IntelliJ IDEA. It provides new features and improvements over Eclipse ADT and will be the official Android IDE once it's ready.
-	Flexible Gradle-based build system.;Build variants and multiple APK generation.;Expanded template support for Google Services and various device types.;Rich layout editor with support for theme editing.;Lint tools to catch performance, usability, version compatibility, and other problems.;ProGuard and app-signing capabilities.;Built-in support for Google Cloud Platform, making it easy to integrate Google Cloud Messaging and App Engine.
Statistics
Stacks 27.4K	Stacks 25.7K
Followers 20.7K	Followers 20.3K
Votes 800	Votes 361
Pros & Cons
Pros 289 Android development 156 Necessary for android 128 Android studio 86 Mobile framework 82 Backed by google	Pros 176 Android studio is a great tool, getting better and bet 103 Google's official android ide 37 Intelligent code editor with lots of auto-completion 25 Its powerful and robust 5 Easy creating android app Cons 4 Slow emulator 4 Huge memory usage 2 Complex for begginers 2 No checking incompatibilities 2 Using Intellij IDEA, while Intellij IDEA have too
Integrations
Java	No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Android SDK, Android Studio?

Node.js

Node.js uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient, perfect for data-intensive real-time applications that run across distributed devices.

Rails

Rails is a web-application framework that includes everything needed to create database-backed web applications according to the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern.

Django

Django is a high-level Python Web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design.

Laravel

It is a web application framework with expressive, elegant syntax. It attempts to take the pain out of development by easing common tasks used in the majority of web projects, such as authentication, routing, sessions, and caching.

.NET

.NET is a general purpose development platform. With .NET, you can use multiple languages, editors, and libraries to build native applications for web, mobile, desktop, gaming, and IoT for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and more.

ASP.NET Core

A free and open-source web framework, and higher performance than ASP.NET, developed by Microsoft and the community. It is a modular framework that runs on both the full .NET Framework, on Windows, and the cross-platform .NET Core.

PhpStorm

PhpStorm is a PHP IDE which keeps up with latest PHP & web languages trends, integrates a variety of modern tools, and brings even more extensibility with support for major PHP frameworks.

IntelliJ IDEA

Out of the box, IntelliJ IDEA provides a comprehensive feature set including tools and integrations with the most important modern technologies and frameworks for enterprise and web development with Java, Scala, Groovy and other languages.