Dev Talks: Top 10 Libraries for Android Developers in 2021

by Joseph Ricard Director

Android development is no child’s playground. It requires dedication, must-have libraries, and Android app development tools to save extra time and build apps without bugs. Speaking of Android, did you know that Android OS captured a market share of approximately 72% in 2020. Android dominates the market. It is simple.

As a developer, many challenges may pull you back from becoming a professional. One of the challenges is a lack of sufficient knowledge. You need to stay up to date about what is going on in the android development market. Which android development framework is trending, and what are the best android libraries of 2021. You should be able to answer all these questions.

To help you on your journey as an Android developer, we have mentioned the top 10 Android libraries of 2021 in this article. Learn about them and make your Android app development project hassle-free.

Best Android libraries of 2021

#1 Retrofit

Retrofit is a great library that is an HTTP client for Android and Java. Retrofit allows developers to define the REST API as the app interface to incorporate different API calls. By using annotation, the developers can control all the API requests concerning the headers, query parameters, body, and other aspects of interfaces.

Retrofit is a clean and easy-to-use Android library that comes with the ability to make both synchronous and asynchronous API calls. Not only that, but it also comes with an inbuilt Rx module that works excellent with RxJava.

#2 MyLittleCanvas

It is one of the top Android libraries for developers. The purpose of MyLittleCanvas was to facilitate work with canvas on Android, but now instead of methods, you can make use of objects, too.

MyLittleCanvas is an Android support library preferred by developers because of features like a custom underline on a TextView. You can also utilize this to implement RectShape, RoundRectShape, TextShape, LineShape, Drawable Shape, PathShape, CircleShape with Canvas methods.

#3. Android Jetpack

It is a selection of software components that helps to build reliable Android apps. Android Jetpack offers a simple path for developers to build an Android app making it easier to support config changes, reduce boilerplate code and complexity with libraries that work across all devices and versions.

Issues like managing activity-lifecycles or preventing memory leaks get resolved by AJ software components. Jetpack consists of androidx.* package libraries that also offer backward compatibility.

#4 Moshi

As the name suggests, Moshi is a modern JSON library for Android and Java created by Square. It converts JSON into Java and Kotlin models converting JSON to Java model (and so on) is simple.

For parsing JSON API responses in Android, Moshi is an excellent choice. Because it targets the Android platform and uses Kotlin features.

It is faster, lightweight with codegen, and has a simple API.
As I said, an excellent choice. It is better to handle any issue at the boundary of the data layer in your model instead of reproducing them into the app and tracking them.
Moshi also supports the native language features of Kotlin. It ensures the type-safety of a Kotlin class used with adapters to parse JSON responses.

#5 Dagger

A technique where an object receives other objects on which it depends is called dependency injection. If you need the best android library for dependency injection, Dagger is the best choice.

This framework allows developers to generate plain Java code.
Its compile-time estimate helps to overcome the challenges of large applications maintenance dependency injections.
Dagger uses compile-time to evaluate all the dependencies, but you will have to handle a demanding learning curve.
In the end, the flexibility of Dagger is going to pay off in the long run.

#6 Glide

Do you find it hard to deal with images on the Android platform? Well, the reason is that API is not optimized for smooth performance.

At this point, Glide comes into the picture.

It is a rapid image loading library for Android that focuses on smooth scrolling.
Glide consists of an open-source library with flexible API, extensive decoding pipelines, and automatic resource pooling.
It helps with fetching, decoding, and displaying video stills, images, or animated GIFs.
It utilizes HttpUrlConnection based stack that contains a versatile API. It helps developers to connect to almost any network stack.

#7 RxJAVA

In reactive programming, the best library is RxJava. It is an open-source implementation of the ReactiveX library for JVM (Java Virtual Machine).

As a fellow developer, you might know that reactive programming is a huge help.

It helps the app to manage the changes automatically. It is called event-driven programming, where data streams come in asynchronous ways and get processed as soon as they arrive.
It also enables developers to coordinate multiple actions without using callbacks or any other action triggered due to specific events in the system.
Simplifying Android app development, RxJava supports multiple JVM-based programming languages.
It implements stream abstracts through “three core constructs.”
It simplifies multithreading through Schedulers.
It is compatible with several third-party libraries.

#8 ROOM

It is an official Android ORM that relies on annotations and standard SQL syntax, while its API is similar to Retrofit API.

The benefit of ROOM over other ORMs is simplicity. Because other ORMs come with complicated APIs.
Thanks to its standard SQL syntax, the ROOM Android library is easy to understand.
It supports the Rx library. And these combined libraries work best together.
ROOM is also an excellent choice because it can be used without much effort or time on your side in understanding the documentation.

#9 Espresso

Google developed this framework to make the process of mobile automation testing easier. Why? Because it was a challenging task. Espresso testing framework is a library that allows you to create and develop UI tests for Android mobile apps.

It offers a consistent and flexible API for the automation of user interface tests in an Android mobile app.
Conduct Android UI tests without the ramification of multithreaded testing.
Simple API that provides different modules to test, validate Android WebView elements, and mock Android Intents.
With backward compatibility, Espresso is easy to set up and has a highly stable test cycle while supporting testing activities outside the app.

#10 Butterknife

Developers mostly use the Butterknife Android library for view binding. It can also assign the IDs to views and help developers stay clean and clear of the excess findViewByid. Just like Dagger, it works like a dependency injection that developers find highly useful. This library creates annotations that create a lot of boilerplate code.

We have mentioned the top 10 Android libraries that are chosen based on their popularity among Android developers in no particular order. These libraries represent the best choices for your functional needs in an Android project. So, go ahead and try them out. If you are a business or an individual looking for skilled app developers, connect with the experts and turn your idea into a successful android app.