DEV Community

Cover image for Best IDEs & Tools for Android App Development
Lucy
Lucy

Posted on

Best IDEs & Tools for Android App Development

#androiddevelopment #hireandroidappdevelopers #developers #idesforandroid

The landscape is obvious if you're installing (or updating) your Android toolchain in 2025: the top center is Android Studio, and then there are niche variants for cross-platform, game, or ultra-light installations. This is a quick rundown of top Android dev tools and IDEs, and best fit and when.

Android Studio

Gradle integration, AVD/Emulator, Layout/Compose tools, profilers, App Quality Insights (Firebase Crashlytics + Android Vitals in the IDE), and Play policy lint to find issues before release are all included in Google's official Android IDE, based on IntelliJ IDEA. Gemini in Android Studio, including AI chat, code completion, code refactoring, and experimental Agent Mode capable of running multi-step tasks, is the news in 2025. Translation: less context switching, quicker UI mocks, and quicker patches.

Best for: For CI/CD in consideration, native Android (Kotlin/Java), Compose UIs, Wear/TV/Auto are mostly developed by most teams and individual developers.

Why it wins: The first to access the latest SDK features, richest Android-specific tooling, and now AI-driven processes that comprehend Compose, Gradle crashes, and Android logs.

Sample Snippet:

@Composable
fun GreetingCard(name: String) {
    MaterialTheme {
        Text(text = "Hello, $name!")
    }
}

// In your Activity:
setContent {
    GreetingCard("Android Developer")
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

You can then use Greetings().greet() from both Android and iOS targets in your KMP setup.

IntelliJ IDEA

IntelliJ IDEA is still well worth it since Android Studio is built on IntelliJ, particularly if you work with mixed Kotlin codebases (server and Android). In 2025, Kotlin completion and analysis are faster as a result of JetBrains' K2 enhancements. While Android feature parity lags behind Android Studio previews, IntelliJ can be convincing if you work with monorepos or prefer business plugins.

Best for: Stores with a lot of Kotlin that want one IDE for both Android and the backend.

Sample snippet: Sharing business logic in a Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP) module opened in IntelliJ:

// shared/src/commonMain/kotlin/Greetings.kt
class Greetings {
    fun greet(): String = "Hello from shared code!"
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

You can then use Greetings().greet() from both Android and iOS targets in your KMP setup.

Visual Studio Code

Though Visual Studio Code is not an IDE for Android, it is popular, light, and optimum for web developers deploying to Android because of the Flutter or React Native toolchains.
Pure native setup is challenging; good extensions and hot reload make it a piece of cake for Flutter.
If cross-platform performance is more important than heavy native tools, use it.

Sample snippet: a Flutter widget in VS Code:

import 'package:flutter/material.dart';

class HelloScreen extends StatelessWidget {
  @override
  Widget build(BuildContext context) {
    return Scaffold(
      body: Center(child: Text('Hello Android & iOS')),
    );
  }
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Run flutter run from VS Code’s terminal to see the app instantly on an emulator or device.

Game engines: Unity & Unreal

Your "IDE" for 3D or 2D game deployment is usually Unity or Unreal, both of which also export Android builds as well as asset pipelines and profiling. Although these engines control your daily process, you'll still require the Android SDK/NDK behind the scenes.

Example of a quick Unity C# MonoBehaviour script:

using UnityEngine;

public class HelloAndroid : MonoBehaviour {
    void Start() {
        Debug.Log("Hello Android Game!");
    }
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Attach it to a GameObject in Unity and build for Android.

Niche & mobile-first options

Though useful for learning, prototyping, or tiny work, AIDE (coding on-device) and DroidScript (JavaScript-first) can never replace Studio on release apps. Roundups have Eclipse/ADT, but it's fossilized compared to the Studio/IntelliJ stack today.

Example DroidScript JavaScript snippet:

function OnStart() {
  app.ShowPopup( "Hello from DroidScript!" );
}
Enter fullscreen mode Exit fullscreen mode

Great for tinkering directly on your phone or tablet.

2025 necessities surrounding your IDE

Firebase Crashlytics + App Quality Insights: See Android Vitals and crashes natively in Studio; you never have to leave the IDE to triage.

Device Mirroring: View and interact with a real device within Android Studio—ideal for demos and debugging UX details.

Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP) support: KMP projects can be opened and executed in Android Studio; JetBrains' roadmap reshaped toward IntelliJ/Studio instead of Fleet. Need to share business logic across iOS and Android? Happy news.

How to choose

  • Native Android, Compose, Play distribution? → Android Studio.
  • One IDE for Kotlin server + Android? → IntelliJ IDEA.
  • Cross-platform UI (Flutter/React Native)? → VS Code (or the framework's tool of choice).
  • Creating games? → Unity/Unreal.

Last word

Android Studio is the clear winner in 2025 for the "best IDE for Android" based on its Gemini AI, Compose-first tooling, integrated quality insights, and frequent platform updates. use Compose when required, supplement it with Firebase, and only resort to cross-platform tools or engines when your product goals really demand them.
You ship on Google Play earlier and less unexpectedly because to that focus. Want to speed up delivery? Hire Android developers and extend your team.

Top comments (0)