Hi! Is it still better to use Android Studio over ...

# android

[dave08]

Hi! Is it still better to use Android Studio over Intellij Ultimate for android projects?

[Zun]

Why wouldn’t a dedicated IDE be better than something that isn't?

[dave08]

Well, one thing is memory usage... two separate processes of an ide, one for backend apis and one for the Android app always open at the same time is quite consuming...

[dave08]

But Ultimate also supports many more plugins...

[Zun]

Curious, but if you have an opinion why ask for ours? It kinda seems like you already have your answer and if anyone disagrees with you, you got arguments why it’s bad

[Dominaezzz]

Probably looking for a "correct" answer. I'd say get more RAM 😄 .

[Jan Skrasek]

I've been trying this for last 6 moths.

Use intellij if you prefer Kotlin things - the plugin and ide is more performant and has the lastest features. But the android plugin is delayed. Currently only old 4.2 supported. Takes few months to support latest Android in Eap.

Use AS if you prefer Android things support. Latest things from Android world. But the intellij platform is delayed more than 6 months. Currently the stable is based on 2020.3…

Also AS has some problems with some plugins, most known is Markdown, when you don't have the preview. Similarly, code with me worked in intellij idea (maybe not all panels, but usable). AS doesn't support it yet, or to be precise, there is support in latest canary and you have to use special testing channel of the plugin...

Personally I prefer IDEA.

[dave08]

Thanks @Jan Skrasek, this is what I was looking for:

But the android plugin is delayed. Currently only old 4.2 supported. Takes few months to support latest Android in Eap.

in the Intellij Ultimate update page, it seemed to say that Android development is fully supported... which is pretty misleading if the Android plugin is still lagging behind...

[dave08]

Memory was only a side-issue... I really like using one IDE for everything if possible... and not having to manage plugins and the rest in more than one.

[Javier]

I prefer IDEA too, the problem is the lack of support for using the latest agp version…

[Jan Skrasek]

They usually say that they cannot provide support earlier than when google release sources. and it seems that happens with stable release 😕

[eygraber]

@Jan Skrasek are you saying alpha/beta AS doesn't have up to date Kotlin plugin? Because I almost exclusively use AS beta, and I've always had the most up to date plugins.

[Jan Skrasek]

Not fully sure. But I can say that stable AS does not have stable IDEA features. The same way I expect the canary AS won't have IDEA eap features. Since I was using IDEA eap to have the AGP 4.2, I had something more. Also the platform is important in the context of responsibility and code completion/highlight performance.