Android SDK vs Electron

Overview

Android SDK

Stacks27.6K

Followers20.7K

Votes800

Electron

Stacks11.6K

Followers10.0K

Votes148

Android SDK vs Electron: What are the differences?

1. Target Platform: Android SDK is specifically designed for Android mobile devices, allowing developers to create native Android applications using Java or Kotlin programming languages. Electron, on the other hand, is a framework that enables developers to build cross-platform desktop applications using web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
2. User Interface: Android applications built using the Android SDK have a native look and feel, following the design guidelines and standards of Android. Electron applications, on the other hand, can have a more customizable and flexible user interface since they can leverage HTML and CSS to create rich user interfaces.
3. Performance: Android SDK applications, being native to the Android platform, generally offer better performance compared to Electron applications. Electron applications utilize web technologies and rely on a browser engine to run, which may introduce some overhead and affect performance, especially for resource-intensive applications.
4. Development Workflow: Android SDK has a more traditional development workflow, where developers write code in Java or Kotlin, compile it into bytecode, and package it as an Android application. Electron, on the other hand, follows a web development workflow, allowing developers to use familiar web technologies and frameworks, making it easier to prototype and develop applications quickly.
5. Deployment: Android applications built using the Android SDK are typically distributed through the Google Play Store or other Android app stores. Electron applications can be distributed as standalone executables for different operating systems, making it easier to distribute and install them on users' devices without the need for an app store.
6. Access to Device Features: Android SDK provides extensive access to various device features and APIs, allowing developers to build applications that interact closely with the hardware and software capabilities of Android devices. Electron, since it is built using web technologies, may have limitations in terms of direct access to certain device features, requiring additional workarounds or the use of native modules.

In Summary, Android SDK is focused on native Android development with a strong emphasis on performance and direct hardware/software access, while Electron enables cross-platform desktop application development using web technologies, with a more flexible user interface and deployment options.

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Advice on Android SDK, Electron

Omran

CTO & Co-founder at Bonton Connect

Jun 19, 2020

Needs adviceon

Kotlin

We actually initially wrote a lot of networking code in Kotlin but the complexities involved prompted us to try and compile NodeJS for Android and port over all the networking logic to Node and communicate with node over the Java Native Interface.

This turned out to be a great decision considering our battery usage fell by 40% and rate of development increased by a factor of 2.

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Comments

Detailed Comparison

Android SDK	Electron
Android provides a rich application framework that allows you to build innovative apps and games for mobile devices in a Java language environment.	With Electron, creating a desktop application for your company or idea is easy. Initially developed for GitHub's Atom editor, Electron has since been used to create applications by companies like Microsoft, Facebook, Slack, and Docker. The Electron framework lets you write cross-platform desktop applications using JavaScript, HTML and CSS. It is based on io.js and Chromium and is used in the Atom editor.
-	Use HTML, CSS, and JavaScript with Chromium and Node.js to build your app.;Electron is open source; maintained by GitHub and an active community.;Electron apps build and run on Mac, Windows, and Linux.;Automatic updates;Crash reporting;Windows installers;Debugging & profiling;Native menus & notifications
Statistics
Stacks 27.6K	Stacks 11.6K
Followers 20.7K	Followers 10.0K
Votes 800	Votes 148
Pros & Cons
Pros 289 Android development 156 Necessary for android 128 Android studio 86 Mobile framework 82 Backed by google	Pros 69 Easy to make rich cross platform desktop applications 53 Open source 14 Great looking apps such as Slack and Visual Studio Code 8 Because it's cross platform 4 Use Node.js in the Main Process Cons 19 Uses a lot of memory 8 User experience never as good as a native app 4 No proper documentation 4 Does not native 1 Wrong reference for dom inspection
Integrations
Java	No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Android SDK, Electron?

Node.js

Node.js uses an event-driven, non-blocking I/O model that makes it lightweight and efficient, perfect for data-intensive real-time applications that run across distributed devices.

Rails

Rails is a web-application framework that includes everything needed to create database-backed web applications according to the Model-View-Controller (MVC) pattern.

Django

Django is a high-level Python Web framework that encourages rapid development and clean, pragmatic design.

Laravel

It is a web application framework with expressive, elegant syntax. It attempts to take the pain out of development by easing common tasks used in the majority of web projects, such as authentication, routing, sessions, and caching.

.NET

.NET is a general purpose development platform. With .NET, you can use multiple languages, editors, and libraries to build native applications for web, mobile, desktop, gaming, and IoT for Windows, macOS, Linux, Android, and more.

ASP.NET Core

A free and open-source web framework, and higher performance than ASP.NET, developed by Microsoft and the community. It is a modular framework that runs on both the full .NET Framework, on Windows, and the cross-platform .NET Core.

Symfony

It is written with speed and flexibility in mind. It allows developers to build better and easy to maintain websites with PHP..

Spring

A key element of Spring is infrastructural support at the application level: Spring focuses on the "plumbing" of enterprise applications so that teams can focus on application-level business logic, without unnecessary ties to specific deployment environments.

Spring Boot

Spring Boot makes it easy to create stand-alone, production-grade Spring based Applications that you can "just run". We take an opinionated view of the Spring platform and third-party libraries so you can get started with minimum fuss. Most Spring Boot applications need very little Spring configuration.

Phoenix Framework

Phoenix is a framework for building HTML5 apps, API backends and distributed systems. Written in Elixir, you get beautiful syntax, productive tooling and a fast runtime.

Related Comparisons

Android SDK vs Electron: What are the differences?

1. Target Platform: Android SDK is specifically designed for Android mobile devices, allowing developers to create native Android applications using Java or Kotlin programming languages. Electron, on the other hand, is a framework that enables developers to build cross-platform desktop applications using web technologies such as HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.
2. User Interface: Android applications built using the Android SDK have a native look and feel, following the design guidelines and standards of Android. Electron applications, on the other hand, can have a more customizable and flexible user interface since they can leverage HTML and CSS to create rich user interfaces.
3. Performance: Android SDK applications, being native to the Android platform, generally offer better performance compared to Electron applications. Electron applications utilize web technologies and rely on a browser engine to run, which may introduce some overhead and affect performance, especially for resource-intensive applications.
4. Development Workflow: Android SDK has a more traditional development workflow, where developers write code in Java or Kotlin, compile it into bytecode, and package it as an Android application. Electron, on the other hand, follows a web development workflow, allowing developers to use familiar web technologies and frameworks, making it easier to prototype and develop applications quickly.
5. Deployment: Android applications built using the Android SDK are typically distributed through the Google Play Store or other Android app stores. Electron applications can be distributed as standalone executables for different operating systems, making it easier to distribute and install them on users' devices without the need for an app store.
6. Access to Device Features: Android SDK provides extensive access to various device features and APIs, allowing developers to build applications that interact closely with the hardware and software capabilities of Android devices. Electron, since it is built using web technologies, may have limitations in terms of direct access to certain device features, requiring additional workarounds or the use of native modules.

Android SDK vs Electron

Overview