Google Android Studio Vs. Eclipse: Which Fits Your Needs?

Nerval's Lobster writes "Google's Android Studio is a development tool for Android based on the IntelliJ IDEA platform, one that managed to attract a lot of hype when it rolled out in mid-2013. Roughly a year later, the platform is still in 'early access preview,' and work on it is ongoing. Eclipse, on the other hand, is the granddaddy of IDEs; although it doesn't offer native Android support, it does have some nice tools to help you build Android applications—one such tool is the Google Plugin for Eclipse, made by Google. Developer and editor Jeff Cogswell compares Eclipse and its Google-made Google Plugin with Google's own Android Studio, developed with the help of the people who make IntelliJ IDEA. His verdict? Eclipse is beginning to show its age, especially when it comes to Android development, while Android Studio offers some noted benefits. 'Android Studio is still in preview mode, without an official release, even if that preview is in pretty fine shape—its status certainly shouldn't prevent you from using it, at least in my opinion,' he writes. Do you agree?"

Not surprising

[Shados]

I haven't done Android development, but IntelliJ IDEA has been ahead of Eclipse for ages, so this isn't surprising.

Eclipse was a good IDE (relative to others) for a brief period of time early in its life, give or take 10 years ago (i think?), and that was it. Everyone else quickly caught up, Visual Studio was brought up to speed (with plugins at least), IDEA came into the spotlight, and the only reason Eclipse was still popular was because it was a) it was free, b) people learnt it in school, c) people didn't even realize there was better IDEs out there for Java (and other non-Microsoft languages).

Horrible article

[AuMatar]

With a very biased verdict. Giving Android Studio the edge because of Gradle support? That's great- if you want to use gradle. I don't. I don't even know what it is- before Android Studio came out I'd never heard of it. And I have better things to do than play with build tools unless it offers a huge advantage- which it doesn't. The fact its impossible to use Android Studio without switching is a negative, not a positive as Eclipse supports both. The edge here should go to Eclipse for giving you choice between build systems.

UI? The UI that you know is better than one you don't- always. If I have to spend even an hour finding new options, that's an hour I'll probably never make back. Eclipse has lots of flaws, but I'm used to those. The real advantage here is Eclipse if you know it, or draw if you don't.

Basically his argument seems to boil down to he likes new shiny stuff. No thanks.

Command-line with ant and your favorite editor?

[Anonymous Coward]

Am I the only person who has written several Android apps (on more than 1x10^6 devices) with ant, my favorite editor, and my own custom tools? I find any IDE maddeningly limiting.

Android Studio is Excellent

[snard6]

I've been an Android developer for 3 years, I've used eclipse extensively as well as Android Studio extensively. Android Studio kicks the pants off of Eclipse. The simple truth you don't realize how painful and terrible the whole Eclipse experience is until you've switched. It solved a ton of my pain points and I would never consider going back. All of my projects have been converted to Gradle, and the savings I receive from that build system are remarkable. It has its own pain points (mostly due to being a pre-1.0 release. Builds break from update-to-update, weird issues arise trying to go from eclipse to Android Studio. Gradle doesn't fully support native. So there are definitely use cases where Eclipse is still a necessary evil. But if you can go the route of Android Studio do it, you'll thank me later.

Re:Horrible article

[metamatic]

that, and i can't figure out why it's better.

Both ANT and Maven represent your build script as huge horrific XML files. Gradle uses a simple human-readable JSON-like syntax.

That and ANT is goddamn slow.