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Searching the web and the Android Team announcement I couldn't find The answer. Will Eclipse ADT be deprecated when Android studio reach its first stable version? The funniest thing is that they also update eclipse plugin to the latest ADT 22.0.0

Why the Android Team started another IDE instead of continue improving the old good ADT ??

It seems like yesterday when they announced the ADT Bundle with all the android plugins integrated.

Personally I could not find the right answer about this. To be honest I feel very comfortable with eclipse and find it much more simple/clean/user-friendly that Android Studio or intellij. For me I will continue develop with Eclipse, is this a good decision?

user456584
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Nicolas Jafelle
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  • I doubt it. Some people continue to use ant for example which continues to be supported. But I agree with you, and so will many others: to deprecate eclipse they would lose too many developers so they won't. However expect the newest and best features to come to AS first :/ I do hope they vastly improve it by the first stable release. – AndroidPenguin May 17 '13 at 20:52
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    "They would lose too many developers" Are you kidding? So you think that if ADT were completely removed, Java developers that use Eclipse will just not code at all for Android? Getting use to IntelliJ takes no longer than two weeks. Not much I think. – Cristian May 17 '13 at 21:12
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    Because Eclipse is the worst that has ever been invented? Ok, exagaration, but seriously. Over the years, I have had nothing but bugs and issues with most basic stuff in Eclipse. Call it what you want, opensource, free or whatever, it works, but quality wise, it isn't there. – mjs Jul 03 '13 at 09:22
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    @SecretService is the first sentence in your comment a question or statement? If you had "bugs and issues" with Eclipse, you'll probably have them with IDEA too - you seem to have problems with "most basic stuff". What do you mean "Call it what you want, opensource, free or whatever"? Are you not certain that Eclipse is an open source project and is free? What confuses me is how your comment got so many thumbs up... – stepanian Jan 07 '14 at 08:26
  • @Nicholas, I cannot fathom how someone could even call Eclipse "user-friendly". Shows how long you've been depriving yourself of pleasure. – Pacerier Dec 19 '14 at 19:49

11 Answers11

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The Eclipse Android Developer Tools have been officially deprecated: Switch to Android Studio if you haven't already!

Will Eclipse ADT be deprecated when Android studio reach its first stable version?

No. According to Xavier Ducrohet in this keynote the Android team will maintain the work on the ADT (At 00:35).

Why the Android Team started another IDE instead of continue improving the old good ADT ?

I'm paraphrasing Xavier Ducrohet now: He says that by building your own IDE they can improve the workflow for developing Android apps. And to be honest, in my opinion the current version of IntelliJ is a lot faster than Eclipse Helios. You just have a great overall experience by using IntelliJ. This is a matter of personal preference of course.

To be honest I feel very comfortable with eclipse and find it much more simple/clean/user-friendly that Android Studio or intellij. For me I will continue develop with Eclipse, is this a good decision?

Maybe. You shouldn't have to switch, if you don't want to. Like I said before, they will still be maintaining the work on the ADT plugin for Eclipse. But at least give IntelliJ a try. I'm sure you'll be very impressed by its performance.

Update

At this point, I would strongly advise everyone to use Android Studio for android development. Although the ADT plugin for Eclipse is still available, support for it is lacking and the android developer tools team has shifted their focus almost entirely to Android Studio. And quite frankly, Android Studio is an amazing IDE, you should definitely switch, if you haven't already.

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Ahmad
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  • The fact that I don't have to Eclipse on Ubuntu is a massive upside! It would crash just because it didn't have enough RAM, now I can run multiple Android Studio's all at once if I want. – danielcooperxyz Jul 17 '13 at 18:35
  • @D4nC00per Yeah Eclipse would crash pretty often on my mac as well. IntelliJ on the other hand runs flawlessly. – Ahmad Jul 17 '13 at 19:45
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    Idea not only faster than Eclipse. UI also looks more nicely compared to ugly Eclipse, imho (especially the dark theme). And it matters when you spend most of your life's time in the IDE ;) – deviant Aug 14 '13 at 13:36
  • My biggest worry is that gradle builds are not usable in eclipse, which keeps me from migrating to gradle, if it means I can only run the builds in IntelliJ or Command line only. – yincrash Mar 17 '14 at 18:45
  • @yincrash There actually is a gradle plugin for Eclipse. See [this](http://www.gradle.org/docs/current/userguide/eclipse_plugin.html). – Ahmad Mar 17 '14 at 18:47
  • @Ahmad, Have you made it work with an Android Gradle project? Xavier had said in May (and announced there was no ETA in Jan) that it was [not possible](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16745793/how-do-you-open-an-android-studio-project-in-eclipse), but maybe that has changed? – yincrash Mar 17 '14 at 19:04
  • @yincrash Oh didn't know that. I just assumed it would work, sorry. – Ahmad Mar 17 '14 at 19:34
  • Is this answer still valid? –  Mar 12 '15 at 14:14
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    @Yassine (Un)fortunately no. It feels like they shifted most of their effort to the development of Android Studio. I'll edit my answer. – Ahmad Mar 12 '15 at 14:49
  • @Yassine Yes, I'm afraid they haven't :| – Ahmad Mar 12 '15 at 19:01
  • This answer was accurate in 2013, but a lot has changed since then. While [the ADT plugin for Eclipse](http://developer.android.com/tools/help/adt.html) is still available on the Android developer tools website, the Eclipse bundle is not. There's a warning there that reads: "If you have been using Eclipse with ADT, be aware that Android Studio is now the official IDE for Android, so you should migrate to Android Studio to receive all the latest IDE updates. For help moving projects, see Migrating to Android Studio." – Paul Lammertsma Jun 09 '15 at 10:12
  • @Paul Yes, you're right. I've already mentioned something similar in the comments above. I'll edit the answer to reflect that. Also: Oh, my. Android Studio was released 2 years ago? Time moves fast. – Ahmad Jun 09 '15 at 11:08
  • I would recommend to update your answer. It is no longer current. [Eclipse ADT is now officially deprecated](http://android-developers.blogspot.de/2015/06/an-update-on-eclipse-android-developer.html), in favour of [Android Studio](http://android-developers.blogspot.de/2014/12/android-studio-10.html). – Knossos Jul 02 '15 at 09:13
  • @Knossos Thanks! I just did. – Ahmad Jul 02 '15 at 10:04
  • Apparently Xavier Ducrohet's statement was not what eventually happened. Eclipse ADT is officially DEPRECATED. – Jaime Montoya Mar 22 '17 at 20:12
  • @Ahmad I know. I was referring to the statement "According to Xavier Ducrohet in this keynote the Android team will maintain the work on the ADT". I guess that was true only at the very beginning only for a while immediately after Android Studio was officially released, but I guess the goal/plan even before its release was to abandon Eclipse ADT in favor of full support for Android Studio. – Jaime Montoya Mar 22 '17 at 21:21
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    @JaimeMontoya I guess they either didn't expect such a big positive reaction from the Android Developer community, or it was just a PR message, but they definitely knew they would discontinue the project – Ahmad Mar 22 '17 at 21:24
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Personally I could not find the right answer about this. To be honest I feel very comfortable with eclipse and find it much more simple/clean/user-friendly that Android Studio or intellij. For me I will continue develop with Eclipse, is this a good decision?

Maybe you haven't used it that much. Let's be clear with this: IntelliJ is far better than Eclipse in almost any aspect. I also was an eclipse user for years, and I was in your position some time ago. But I must admit that IntelliJ simply works better. It's a better Java IDE, it has great support for things like Maven or Gradle, it's faster, it's smart (code completion, refactoring, etc.), it kind of understands you as a developer, it has also an Open Source version, and the list goes on and on.

So, the only reason not to switch, IMHO, is either laziness or fanaticism or you are color blind (this is the only reason I respect).

Cristian
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  • No, i am using it and trying to get used to it. I will give it a try and see what happens. Today I finally succed to includo the ActionBarSherlock as a library or the new name "module". I just use the IDE as it is, just an IDE. I also use the logcat in the console, git in a separate console, maven the same thing. – Nicolas Jafelle May 17 '13 at 21:43
  • I also love to have them separate (git, ddms, adb and Maven). The idea of using IntelliJ is to become productive... let's say: How many times do you use your mouse per hour? If you use it more than 20 times, it means you could be wasting some valuable time. Try to learn some IntelliJ shortcuts and you will save some time to do other more fun things. – Cristian May 17 '13 at 22:41
  • Let me give you another reason to not switch: I am colour blinded and I don't see some colours correctly. I gave Android Studio several tries but just could not work properly in it. While the Eclipse colours are perfect for me. – Dumitru Hristov Nov 21 '14 at 12:43
  • Now, that's interesting. I'd like to know more. What exactly causes you problems? It's pretty easy to change the source code theming... have you tried that? Or you mean the IDE UI? – Cristian Nov 21 '14 at 19:31
  • Yes, I did try changing the theme and colors but did not achieve a decent scheme yet. The problem is I cannot formulate what exactly is causing the problem, because if I could I wouldn't be color blinded in the first place. – Dumitru Hristov Nov 23 '14 at 08:02
  • I see. Well, I do hope you find a theme that works. Let me know if you need help setting something up. I have color blind coworkers... we might figure something out. In the mean time, I'll edit my answer. – Cristian Nov 25 '14 at 01:58
  • I'm not color blinded (actually "Perfect color vision" in online test) and I find latest IDEA visually *ugly as hell* compared to the latest Eclipse. Also I find Eclipse much better integrated with Mercurial and Git, much more easy to setup a project in, having orders of magnitude more useful plugins, having much faster and more responsive UI, showing compilation errors always, when they exist, not only when I open a file, compiling hundreds times faster, having much more meaningful context menu, etc. I know it's a matter of taste, but I'm tired of hearing blind IDEA fanatics everywhere. – afrish Dec 28 '14 at 02:16
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Did that happen?

From the http://developer.android.com/sdk/index.html

If you're a new Android developer, you should consider starting with Android Studio, because the ADT plugin for Eclipse is no longer in active development.

AlexS
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    Current wording: "If you have been using Eclipse with ADT, be aware that Android Studio is now the official IDE for Android, so you should migrate to Android Studio to receive all the latest IDE updates." – mhsmith Dec 12 '14 at 11:31
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Will Eclipse ADT be deprecated? Likely.

Since August 2014 (earlier than that actually), Android's official website had written:

[Android Studio is] currently in beta but will be the official Android IDE once it's ready.

If you're a new Android developer, you should consider starting with Android Studio, because the ADT plugin for Eclipse is no longer in active development.

Fast forward to 8 December 2014, Android Studio 1.0 has been released:

After two years of development, we're extremely happy to announce that Android Studio 1.0 has finally been released! We would like to thank all of our early access users for their feedback and bug reports which helped shape the IDE.

Currently Android's official website writes:

If you have been using Eclipse with ADT, be aware that Android Studio is now the official IDE for Android, so you should migrate to Android Studio to receive all the latest IDE updates. For help moving projects, see Migrating to Android Studio.

Considering the choppy politics of the Android platform, having Android Studio being labeled "official" does seem like Eclipse's ADT plugin will be getting subpar treatment, which is probably the very definition of being de facto deprecated.

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Pacerier
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Intellij had support for Android Development even when every how-to was assuming use of the Eclipse ADT.

It appears to me that pretty much nothing had to change on Google's end to make this happen except to make the export functionality in Eclipse more digestible and you get that in the latest SDK Manager. I'm not an Eclipse user, but this leads me to believe that support for Eclipse would require work to remove, so I doubt it's going away. (E/A Much Later: It apparently required work to support and so it did go away)

Android Studio is essentially a stripped down to the Android Specific stuff of of what will be released as the Intellij IDEA 13 Commmunity Version (which is also free).

If you find you like Android Studio, and want to do more Java development with something like it, look at the IDEA 13 EAP. In December (the targeted release date), you can either pay for the ultimate version or use the free community version, whichever suits your needs.

JoeHz
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5

Following up on the answers here from 2013, according to Xavier Ducrohet's response to a question during the Android fireside chat at I/O 2014 (here's a direct link to the video at 46:49), Android Studio is going to be getting the primary focus.

The Eclipse Foundation is working on Gradle support, but this is not in collaboration with Google, and according to Xavier, the support will be more coincidental than Google endorsed. Android tools will not work, but you will be able to write Java, modify resources and build through Gradle once this is released by Eclipse.

It's also noteworthy that Android Studio has now exited preview and is now beta.

I understand all this to be a not-so-official statement that while the ADT plugin for Eclipse will work for the time being, it won't ever be forward-compatible with current and upcoming developments in Android Studio, with the obvious example being Gradle support in Android projects.

2015 update: This answer was accurate in 2014, more has changed since then. While the ADT plugin for Eclipse is still available on the Android developer tools website, the Eclipse bundle is not. There's a warning there that reads:

If you have been using Eclipse with ADT, be aware that Android Studio is now the official IDE for Android, so you should migrate to Android Studio to receive all the latest IDE updates. For help moving projects, see Migrating to Android Studio.

As an additional warning, it reads below that (emphasis mine):

If you still wish to use the ADT plugin for Eclipse, see Installing Eclipse Plugin.

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I am still not 100% sure about android studio. What really don't like are:

  • Cannot create "workspace" folder in any place.
  • Do not like the way that the project is indeed the current workspace, if you open another project you cannot see more project. Only one project at the same time.
  • No perspective. It seems that there is a lot of information in the same windows and need continuously open/close the "panels" at the left, right and bottom of the screen.
  • Too much IDE metadata config file. The ".idea" folder contains 10 files and 3 folders, is really necessary all this information for the IDE?

To be honest I found Eclipse classic + ADT + nothing more, just this two things much more simple and cleaner that Android studio.

Nicolas Jafelle
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    It's a different paradigm. I can create my workspace folder in a different place. I changed it from the default in fact. You can absolutely open more than one project at the same time. In my config it asks me if I want to open it in a new window, or in this one. You can get those panels to go away. You can move them outside of the main window even. That's the whole point. And why does it matter to you what goes into the .idea directory? I've never ever bothered to look at it's contents. In fact, normally ".*" directories are hidden. You have to go looking for them on purpose. – JoeHz May 20 '13 at 00:14
  • I am still not convenced about Android studio. In fact today Intel release another IDE based on eclipse... Check it out: http://software.intel.com/en-us/vcsource/tools/beaconmountain – Nicolas Jafelle May 20 '13 at 18:22
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    you can have more than one project, they are just in different windows. Workspace is a broken concept (imo), since settings are per workspace, and there's no true concept of multi-module projects. Project referencing inside the workspace is very fragile as projects could be anywhere on the disk but in the same workspace. You should look inside the .metadata folder of the workspace, there's as much data in there. – Xavier Ducrohet May 22 '13 at 02:08
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My reason for wanting to stay with Eclipse is that we also develop our server side with it , so we have one workspace where we control it all. Android Studio is a good option for app-only developers . Eclipse is totally free and it is the most popular Java IDE for years , unlike IntelliJ - unless you crack it .

My fear is , that they will not invest enough effort in ADT as most app developer would move to Android Studio , there are already several bugs I opened for the ADT project in its bugs tracking system , and it would be very upsetting to see things that works properly in Android Studio and not in ADT .

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Although Xavier Ducrohet, who leads the Android Tools group, has promised to keep ADT alive, this cannot happen indefinitely because he did not double his tool development staff when Android Studio development began. Google regularly drops products, so it will not be a precedent for them to drop ADT. The unknown is when that will happen.

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The update to this is yes, it will be no longer supported by end of year 2015 based on the official Android developer blog post: http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2015/06/an-update-on-eclipse-android-developer.html

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Yes, but as mentioned in the Android Developers Blog there is Andmore which is the spiritual successor of Google's ADT, the Adroid Development Tools, for Eclipse.

Flow
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