Android Studio

The official IDE for Android development

As of 30 August 2026, Android Studio is free to use. Android Studio is the official Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for Android app development, based on IntelliJ IDEA. Softwr lists it under Mobile Development. Android Studio is made by Google LLC, launched in 2014, available on Windows, macOS, Linux.

Visit siteVisit Android Studio

Overview

What Android Studio does

Android Studio is the official Integrated Development Environment (IDE) for Android app development, based on IntelliJ IDEA. It provides the fastest tools for building apps on every type of Android device with rich layout editors, APK analyzer, intelligent code editor, and realtime profilers.

What people use it for

Android app development
Mobile game development
Enterprise mobile apps
Learning Android development
Prototyping mobile apps

Where it falls short

Concrete and checkable, so you can decide whether any of them matter to you. This is the half of a review a vendor will not write about Android Studio.

Requires internet access during installation and initial project setup for dependency downloads
Offline mode limited without cached dependencies already downloaded
Can be resource-intensive with minimum 8GB RAM and 8GB disk space requirements

Cross-shopped

What people choose instead of Android Studio

Each pairing was judged by two reviewers asking whether a buyer would genuinely weigh the two against each other. The ones that failed were deleted rather than published.

Android Studiovs
JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA
JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA: Full-featured IDE from JetBrains with broader language support including Java, Kotlin, and Python
Android Studiovs
Xcode
Xcode: Official IDE for Apple development, equivalent role to Android Studio but for iOS and macOS platforms
Android Studiovs
Visual Studio Code
Visual Studio Code: Lightweight, free code editor with extensive plugin ecosystem for Android development and multiple languages

Capabilities

Features

Intelligent code editor
Visual layout editor
APK analyzer
Fast Android emulator
Real-time profilers
Version control integration
Built-in terminal
Gradle-based build system
Firebase
Integration with Firebase
Google Cloud
Integration with Google Cloud
Git
Integration with Git
GitHub
Integration with GitHub

Answered, with sources

Questions people ask

Each answer names the page it came from, so you can check it rather than take our word for it.

Can I use Android Studio offline?

Partially. You can work offline after initial setup by enabling Offline Work in settings, but internet access is required during installation and at least once for project dependency downloads.

Source

Does Android Studio support Kotlin?

Yes, Kotlin is fully supported with first-class IDE support, Kotlin plugin bundled with releases, and automatic update suggestions. Kotlin is now the default language choice for new Android projects.

Source

Behind it

Who makes Android Studio

Company: Google LLC
Based in: Mountain View, CA

Timeline

Android Studio over time

Milestone2014-12-01
Android Studio 1.0 released as first stable version
Source
Launch2013-05-16
Android Studio announced at Google I/O with version 0.1 in early access preview
Source

Keep looking

Where to go from Android Studio

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Softwr does not host reviews and shows no star rating for Android Studio, because a rating we did not collect is not ours to publish. What is here is the pricing and platform detail from the vendor’s own pages, limitations we could state concretely, and alternatives a reviewer confirmed people weigh against it. Tell us if any of it is wrong.

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