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Android Studio

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Android Studio vs Bazel: What are the differences?

Android Studio: Android development environment based on IntelliJ IDEA. 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; Bazel: Correct, reproducible, fast builds for everyone. Bazel is a build tool that builds code quickly and reliably. It is used to build the majority of Google's software, and thus it has been designed to handle build problems present in Google's development environment.

Android Studio can be classified as a tool in the "Integrated Development Environment" category, while Bazel is grouped under "Java Build Tools".

Some of the features offered by Android Studio are:

  • Flexible Gradle-based build system.
  • Build variants and multiple APK generation.
  • Expanded template support for Google Services and various device types.

On the other hand, Bazel provides the following key features:

  • Multi-language support: Bazel supports Java, Objective-C and C++ out of the box, and can be extended to support arbitrary programming languages.
  • High-level build language: Projects are described in the BUILD language, a concise text format that describes a project as sets of small interconnected libraries, binaries and tests. By contrast, with tools like Make you have to describe individual files and compiler invocations.
  • Multi-platform support: The same tool and the same BUILD files can be used to build software for different architectures, and even different platforms. At Google, we use Bazel to build both server applications running on systems in our data centers and client apps running on mobile phones.

"Android studio is a great tool, getting better and bet " is the top reason why over 164 developers like Android Studio, while over 18 developers mention "Fast" as the leading cause for choosing Bazel.

Bazel is an open source tool with 12.4K GitHub stars and 2.02K GitHub forks. Here's a link to Bazel's open source repository on GitHub.

According to the StackShare community, Android Studio has a broader approval, being mentioned in 928 company stacks & 690 developers stacks; compared to Bazel, which is listed in 11 company stacks and 7 developer stacks.

Advice on Android Studio and Bazel

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)

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FlutterFlutter

First of all - Android Studio and Visual Studio are IDE's. Tools to create code. What you are asking is programming framework. I assume that when you are talking about Android Studio you mean Native Android Development and by Visual Studio you mean Xamarin.

If you want to create crossplatform app then Native Android Development is NOT a way to go. Xamarin might work for you, BUT - you'd rather recommend you to go with Flutter. It's much more performant than Xamarin, programming model is friendlier for developer and technology seems just more refined. It's also officially supported by google, so no worries about support.

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Pros of Android Studio
Pros of Bazel
  • 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
  • 3
    Amazing Layout Designer
  • 3
    Great Code Tips
  • 3
    Great tool & very helpful
  • 2
    Easy to use
  • 2
    Built in Emulator
  • 2
    Keyboard Shortcuts are Amazing Out of the box
  • 28
    Fast
  • 20
    Deterministic incremental builds
  • 17
    Correct
  • 16
    Multi-language
  • 14
    Enforces declared inputs/outputs
  • 10
    High-level build language
  • 9
    Scalable
  • 5
    Multi-platform support
  • 5
    Sandboxing
  • 4
    Dependency management
  • 2
    Windows Support
  • 2
    Flexible
  • 1
    Android Studio integration

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Cons of Android Studio
Cons of Bazel
  • 4
    Slow emulator
  • 4
    Huge memory usage
  • 2
    Using Intellij IDEA, while Intellij IDEA have too
  • 2
    Complex for begginers
  • 2
    No checking incompatibilities
  • 1
    Lags behind IntelliJ IDEA
  • 1
    Slow release process
  • 3
    No Windows Support
  • 2
    Bad IntelliJ support
  • 1
    Poor windows support for some languages
  • 1
    Constant breaking changes
  • 1
    Learning Curve
  • 1
    Lack of Documentation

Sign up to add or upvote consMake informed product decisions

What is Android Studio?

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.

What is Bazel?

Bazel is a build tool that builds code quickly and reliably. It is used to build the majority of Google's software, and thus it has been designed to handle build problems present in Google's development environment.

Need advice about which tool to choose?Ask the StackShare community!

What companies use Android Studio?
What companies use Bazel?
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What tools integrate with Android Studio?
What tools integrate with Bazel?

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Mar 24 2021 at 12:57PM

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What are some alternatives to Android Studio and Bazel?
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.
Visual Studio
Visual Studio is a suite of component-based software development tools and other technologies for building powerful, high-performance applications.
Eclipse
Standard Eclipse package suited for Java and plug-in development plus adding new plugins; already includes Git, Marketplace Client, source code and developer documentation. Click here to file a bug against Eclipse Platform.
Xamarin
Xamarin’s Mono-based products enable .NET developers to use their existing code, libraries and tools (including Visual Studio*), as well as skills in .NET and the C# programming language, to create mobile applications for the industry’s most widely-used mobile devices, including Android-based smartphones and tablets, iPhone, iPad and iPod Touch.
Xcode
The Xcode IDE is at the center of the Apple development experience. Tightly integrated with the Cocoa and Cocoa Touch frameworks, Xcode is an incredibly productive environment for building amazing apps for Mac, iPhone, and iPad.
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