Android Studio vs Xamarin: What are the differences?

What is 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.

What is Xamarin? Create iOS, Android and Mac apps in C#. 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.

Android Studio can be classified as a tool in the "Integrated Development Environment" category, while Xamarin is grouped under "Cross-Platform Mobile Development".

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, Xamarin provides the following key features:

• Cross-platform development- Thinking about supporting iOS, Android, Mac and Windows? Xamarin allows you to write it all in C#.
• Reuse existing code- Use your favorite .NET libraries in Xamarin apps. Easily use third-party native libraries and frameworks.
• Discover as you type- Explore APIs as you type with code autocompletion.

"Android studio is a great tool, getting better and bet " is the primary reason why developers consider Android Studio over the competitors, whereas "Power of c# on mobile devices" was stated as the key factor in picking Xamarin.

According to the StackShare community, Android Studio has a broader approval, being mentioned in 928 company stacks & 692 developers stacks; compared to Xamarin, which is listed in 75 company stacks and 66 developer stacks.