You want to create high-quality Android apps, but that's not possible without having the right development toolkit. No matter how experienced the Android developers you hire are, you need the right android development tools for creating, testing, and running Android apps.
But what would happen if these tools didn't exist? Performance issues would arise, and more development time would be required.
At one point, you'd be thinking about developing your app faster, while on another, your code would be architecturally incorrect, and likely to affect app performance in the long run. But we don’t want you to be stuck in that situation.
Though there are hundreds of tools that Android developers use regularly; to save your time, our developers have selected 14 free tools for Android app development.
60 Second Summary
Let's discuss some of the top tools for developing android apps that our developers use day in and day out. These are as given below-
Google created Android Studio in 2013, one of the best tools for developing Android apps. Android Studio is the official integrated development environment (IDE) for developing high-quality Android apps. The IDE contains SDK tools.
In addition, Android Studio supports various programming languages such as C++, Java, and Kotlin, enabling developers to develop applications for smartphones, tablets, Android TV, wearable gadgets, etc.
This tool for Android app development is available for free download, and you can install it with a few clicks on Microsoft Windows, Mac OS, Linux, etc. Android Studio is the #1 choice for Android developers as it gets huge support from Google.
Besides that, this android tool offers an extensive range of features which are as given below - visual layout editor (a drag-and-drop editor to move around UI components), a flexible build system that facilitates faster debugging, and an intelligent code editor to help you write better and faster code within a short span.
Cost- It's a free tool for developing Android apps.
Google developed a new Gen AI type cloud-based tool for developers (Firebase studio) to create full stack experiences such as mobile and web apps (backend, frontend, APIs).
They can leverage AI capabilities to convert an app's idea into digital products all using natural language prompts, readymade templates and superpowers of Gemini. Just type the prompt and get a fully-fledged app on the go.
You can access Firebase Studio at studio.firebase.com. You simply need a Google account to create an app through this development tool.
You can even access online Android Studio or various workspaces for different frameworks through Firebase Studio. No Installation required, just easy to go environments.
Developers will have access to all required Android SDK tools pre-installed, and they can start with creating real life projects and step into the world of development in the cloud. This also provides virtual devices where the applications can be tested and installed for continuous development.
Cost- It's currently in preview mode so it’s available for free for up to 3 workspaces but members who're part of Google's developer program are eligible for up to 30 workspaces.
Once the free quota is exhausted and preview mode is off, Google will charge you based on pay as you go model.
Initially, Java was used for Android app development, but in 2019, Google officially declared that Android apps will be Kotlin first.
JetBrains developed Kotlin programming language, and Google has declared Kotlin as the preferred language for Android app development. In fact, Java is dying out and also Kotlin has been releasing more new updates and features so developers prefer using it.
Not only does this programming language provide best-in-class features, but it also makes the developers more productive. A study states that 67% of professional developers feel more productive when using this programming language.
Many developers are shifting their app development projects from Java to Kotlin because they don’t want to waste their time writing boilerplate code which was the case with Java. Through Kotlin, they can achieve their project goals with less code and with no quality compromises.
Kotlin is interoperable with java. That means it can seamlessly work with java projects and can smoothly be used in existing projects without any issues. Also, Kotlin made it convenient for developers to handle asynchronous operations in their projects with better readable and maintainable code.
Cost- Free as it’s an open-source project.
Visual studio with Xamarin is a type of IDE used for developing Android, web and desktop apps. It uses the Microsoft technology stack and offers an advantage to you to reuse around 90% of the code across platforms.
In addition, this Android app development tool uses C#, C++ and Python for developing cross-platform apps.
The best part? It allows you to either build your app from scratch or you can select from predefined templates to start your app development project.
Cost- Free, but it does come with subscription plans of Microsoft visual studio
Android Debug Bridge (ADB) is primarily a command line tool which acts as a bridge between Android devices and computers.
ADB is a cross-platform development tool that works on various platforms such as Windows, Mac OS, Linux, etc. You can send commands from your computer to your phone such as installing apps, copying files and fixing problems.
As a developer, you would want to develop the app and deploy it across different devices without requiring a third-party platform. The deployment can either be done using USB or wireless mode like Wi-Fi. That's what Android debugging tool comes.
Furthermore, it's a straightforward tool that helps install and debug programs, track files, create apps, automate tasks and troubleshoot issues in your phone. Best part? It's a game changer for accessing the emulator and making changes on devices.
Cost- It's an open-source library and free for all users.
Gradle, as an Android development tool, creates an environment that facilitates the smooth building and packaging of applications.
This tool analyzes the source code for errors and packages into an executable application which can be installed in emulators or physical devices.
Best part? It offers flexibility as its scripts can be customized depending on project requirements.
They can write tasks, add plugins, and implement dependencies in Gradle scripts per the project requirements.
Few use cases of Gradle android tool-
In a nutshell, Android Studio uses Gradle as its build system. Developers manage dependencies and appropriate settings for their projects through project files provided by Gradle.
Cost- Open source
LeakCanary is a third-party library used for identifying memory leaks in Android apps. Usually, Android devices come with limited memory resources and if memory leaks happen, then it would degrade the performance of mobile applications and at times result in app crashes as well.
This Android development tool is used for identifying instances where memory leaks occur and it helps developers to prevent out of memory error crashes.
It provides detailed reports to developers as to when a leak occurs so they can fix the issues on their own before it affects user experience.
Cost- It's an open-source library.
Google developed Firebase, which is a backend as a service platform and offers developers everything from real-time database to cloud storage and providing granular level insights on app performance. It ensures that your mobile applications are always up and running.
As a backend development tool, its cloud-based infrastructure allows developers to build apps faster. Developers need not worry about handling server-side architectural issues and instead can focus on how to enhance user experience.
Best part? Its ready-to-use infrastructure allows developers to skip the back-and-forth hassle of developing apps that takes days and months to develop. You can quickly prototype your app idea in hours, not days.
Firebase provides easy-to-integrate SDKs for different platforms such as Android, iOS and web.
It has a Crashlytics library which can be used for detecting and fixing crashes in real time for Android apps. It provides a snapshot to developers on a single dashboard highlighting-
Firebase provides Firebase Cloud Messaging solution which makes it easier for developers to send messages through notifications to their targeted users.
Cost- It's free but you can go for a paid tier if you want to scale.
Initially, XML was used for defining user interfaces but now Jetpack compose has changed the way user interface is created.
With a compose library, developers can build native UI using predefined templates.
It's like you tell Compose how you want the UI to look, and this Android tool will handle the rest.
Developers can become more productive using the compose features for UI development and state management. This way, they don’t have to write unnecessary lines of code used for basic UI development.
Take the example of Recycler View, which made developers create multiple files for UI and View binding. Using compose; Developers can mirror the same functionality with a single block of code without creating multiple files.
It uses a declarative approach to develop user interfaces. The declarative approach focuses more on defining the state and component avoiding unnecessary references, and listeners for a basic functionality, unlike XML.
As it’s considered the official toolkit that Android provides, so Google is pushing developers to move towards jetpack composition.
Cost- Kotlin based Jetpack Compose library is open source.
Dagger Hilt is a dependency injection library for Android to see how different classes in an app depend on each other.
Earlier, Developers used to handle dependency injection manually, but with this library, the development time has been reduced, and code has become more maintainable and better for scalability.
Consider Dagger Hilt as building a house and instead of doing everything on your own, you delegate tasks to somebody else. That’s where the concept of dependency injection comes in. Dependency injection, referred to as Software Design Pattern, is all about providing the objects and functions to another class without letting the class have the unnecessary changes in the codebase.
This way, you can reduce a lot of boilerplate code and manage dependencies across different code bases. With the use of Dagger Hilt, the process of dependency injection gets simplified, and the code bases readability improves, making it easier for developers to test and debug.
Cost- Free to use
Coil is an image loading library that works with Kotlin coroutines so it's a perfect choice for developing android apps and can work with tools like Jetpack Compose.
It makes loading, caching and displaying images easier from any source. While it requires fewer resources, its image processing capabilities are blazingly fast.
As one of the best tools for Android apps, it offers customization capabilities (resizing or cropping) to developers to handle image loading issues and alter them before publishing. Best part? It loads images faster in mobile devices as it's a lightweight library.
Being a Kotlin first library, Coil provides developers to prioritize the image requests meaning critical images will be given high priority for loading.
Cost- Free to use. Open-Source Library.
It's an inspector tool used for identifying network code requests and monitoring the traffic between an app and the backend server. This allows developers to debug and test issues for testing scenarios.
This app development tool is a blessing for Android developers as they can quickly see when something goes wrong.
One of the great features about Charles Proxy is that it lets you simulate your app performance when there is slower internet connectivity (3G, 4G or Edge) under different network conditions. This way by testing your app in different conditions, you can improve its performance.
Cost- You can access Charles proxy for free, but its free version allows you to use this app for 30 minutes. After 30 minutes, you need to re start the Charles again. Its paid version costs $50 regardless of whether you’re an individual or a company.
Android Lint, a lint warning tool which is used for spotting mistakes in code, errors and ensuring that your code complies with Android app development guidelines. Besides identifying redundant code and usability issues, it can correct the errors before publishing the app.
This is helpful for identifying errors in large and complex projects which can be left untouched by the human eye.
Lint tool is present inside Android Studio, and this tool analyzes the code automatically.
The lint checks can be handled manually, and it also provides convenience to developers to suppress the unnecessary lint checks. This helps the developers in analyzing the code leading to better code standards and optimization.
Cost- There's no cost to run lint. It's a free tool for detecting bad code in Android apps.
Android Studio Profiler is a performance analysis tool used for identifying performance related issues. It will provide you with real-time insights about how much CPU it is utilizing, memory it is consuming.
This android tool is easy to use, and developers can take advantage of this tool to optimize the applications. Once you run the application, a profiler session can be created through the attached debuggable instance of the application.
The insights of active and non-active instances of applications can be viewed through the profiler. It shows the CPU utilization on every interaction with components in application.
The below image shows how much memory the app consumes when interaction with the components takes place in the running instance of application. This helps in detecting the amount of memory consumption at a specific point.
Cost- You can access profiler for free as its integrated in Android studio.
With an increasing number of Android apps, there comes the need for Android development tools that enable developers to produce quality apps.
Starting your next Android app development project is a difficult process. Undoubtedly, you can use hundreds of Android app development tools to kickstart your app development journey.
But the above ones will help you develop scalable and high-quality Android applications.
Need help developing next-generation Android apps that can 2x your traffic, so connect with our Android app development experts now and get a 30 min free consultation session now.