12 Best Tools for Android App Development

Considering that there are currently far more Android mobile devices on the market than any other operating system, the demand for apps and experienced Android application developers will only grow in the future. One of the most lucrative fields of software development is Android development.

Let us discuss the Best 12 tools for Android app development in this article.

1. Android Studio

Google's official IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for Android development is Android Studio. It can be used to build Android apps on Windows, Linux, and Mac OS X. Java, C/C++, and Kotlin; are some of the programming languages available for Android development and are supported by Android Studio.

The Android SDK (Software Development Kit) and some extra development tools like AVD Manager and Android Debug Bridge are included in Android Studio. Also, it has other features like a visual layout editor, an APK (Android Package) analyzer, an Android device emulator, real-time performance profiling tools, etc.

Advantages:

1. It can be downloaded for free.
2. It has emulator support, which allows us to run and test the app right away.

2. JRebel

We've all been annoyed by staring at the screen like a fool while waiting for Gradle builds to finish. But JRebel's fantastic tool saves the day by dramatically reducing build times and making Android app development and debugging almost instantaneous. The cost of JRebel is determined by the number of developer seats and the license duration.

3. Android Developers

The official source for Android development is Android Developers. You'll find a plethora of Android resources here, all of which are entirely free. You don't have to be concerned about the quality of the materials because Google produced them. Because the site is so large, it's not always easy to find what you're looking for; here are a few of the essential resources on the site:

Android Training: This course provides step-by-step instructions for learning Android development from beginner to advanced levels.

Developer Guidelines: These guidelines explain how to use the Android APIs and other libraries to create Android apps.

Checklist for Google Play Launch: This checklist summarizes the criteria your app must meet before being submitted to Google Play.

Design Guidelines: These guidelines explain how to create apps that look and behave as they belong on the Android platform.

4. AIDE

The Android IDE (AIDE) allows you to develop Android apps directly on your Android phone or tablet. It offers a very user-friendly environment for Android development. You can not only write code on your device, but you can also run, test, and debug it there. AIDE is available for download from the Google Play store.

Even though AIDE lacks some of the features of other IDEs such as Android Studio and IntelliJ IDEA, it is an excellent choice for inexperienced programmers. It also contains Android tutorials that allow you to follow the highlighted code and run the example app on your device. AIDE currently supports android apps written in Java and C/C++.

5. Avd Manager

Android Studio includes an AVD Manager tool. The abbreviation AVD stands for Android Virtual Device. It allows for the creation of virtual Android devices for testing. An AVD is a virtual device configuration that defines the hardware profile, storage area, appearance, system image, and other virtual device attributes.

You can make as many AVDs as you want with AVD Manager. The Android Emulator, which is included with Android Studio, allows you to access your virtual devices for testing purposes.

6. Unity 3D

Unity 3D is a 3D game engine. It is a cross-platform game development environment for developing complex, graphics-intensive mobile games, such as virtual or augmented reality games. Unity 3D can still be used to make basic 2D-based games, but it's more commonly used for advanced game development.

You can make two-dimensional and three-dimensional games with Unity 3D. It comes with an all-in-one editor that emphasizes storytelling over coding, as well as advanced performance profiling tools, a real-time rendering engine, and a slew of other cool features. Unity 3D allows you to create virtual reality applications in addition to games. Anyone whose annual income or funding does not exceed $100K is eligible for a free personal license.

7. Stetho

Stetho is a Facebook-developed Android debugging tool. It's a free, open-source platform that gives you access to the Chrome Developer Tools features built right into the desktop browser. Stetho includes image preview through network inspection, JSON response helpers, and the ability to export traces to the HAR format.

You can inspect your Android app with Stetho using all of Chrome DevTools' Network panel features. You can also see the hierarchy of the app and visualize your databases. The dumpapp tool gives you a command-line interface to examine your application's internals more thoroughly. Dumpapp comes with a few pre-installed plugins, but you can also write your own.

8. FlowUp

You can use FlowUp to keep track of the performance of all of your production apps. You can keep track of your stats and metrics using dashboards, including CPU and disc usage, memory usage, frames per second, bandwidth, and more. FlowUp is a monthly subscription-based SaaS solution with prices based on the company's total number of customers.

9. Leakcanary

Square-designed LeakCanary; It is a powerful open-source tool that simplifies the time-consuming and challenging task of identifying memory leaks. Once you've set it up, it'll send you alerts if your app has a memory leak, along with a full stack trace to assist you in resolving the issue. A memory leak is a type of programming error that frequently occurs in Java and Android apps.

The memory allocated for the expired object cannot be recovered because the reference still exists. Memory leaks can also cause OutOfMemoryError crashes in some cases.

This problem has an elegant solution in LeakCanary. It detects objects that are no longer required and tracks down the references that lead back to them. The memory leaks are then automatically reported to you, and you can use the leak trace to resolve the issue.

10. Fabric

Fabric is the platform on which Twitter's mobile app is built. It allows developers to create better mobile apps by providing them with a collection of "kits" from which to choose. Everything from beta-testing to marketing and advertisement tools is included in these kits. Google acquired Fabric from Twitter in January of 2017. Uber, Spotify, Square, Groupon, Yelp, and other well-known firms have used Fabric to create mobile apps.

11. Instabug

Yahoo, PayPal, Lyft, BuzzFeed, and Mashable are just a few of the well-known tech companies that use Instabug for beta testing and bug reports. During the QA and debugging process, Instabug allows beta testers and user groups to share screenshots and detailed error logs with developers. Instabug offers a free trial, after which it is priced individually based on the number of team members, apps, and overall length of the project engagement.

12. Intellij Idea

JetBrains' IntelliJ IDEA is a Java IDE with built-in Android support. Although Android Studio is the official IDE for Android, IntelliJ IDEA is a good choice for simpler Android apps. This is especially true given that Android Studio is built on top of IntelliJ IDEA. The documentation for IntelliJ IDEA includes a detailed Android development guide. You get many useful JetBrains plugins with IntelliJ IDEA, including smart code completion, on-the-fly code analysis, refactoring tools, and a lot of useful JetBrains plugins.

To summarize….

Even though you've been working in the Android development industry for a long time, there's always something new to learn. There are various android development tools available in the market. Depending on the application they're working on, each developer has their personal preferences for which tools and environments they use.