Android AsyncTask is it a bad idea to use for network-purposes?

Question

I've been using AsyncTasks for the past year to access a server and retrieve data, but is it a bad idea to use AsyncTasks for this purpose?

I see a lot of people using librariea such as Retrofit and others to handle their network operations.

Should I be using some third party libraries (or even Google's Volley) to handle this kind of requests?

Use Retrofit or Volley, they are better and faster, especially Retrofit with GSON. — Raphael Teyssandier, May 26 '16 at 14:24
this may help, http://stackoverflow.com/questions/37140805/creating-a-callback-on-a-class-method/37141270#37141270 — Pankaj Nimgade, May 26 '16 at 14:27
Heres really a nice answer by LOG_TAG http://stackoverflow.com/questions/16902716/comparison-of-android-networking-libraries-okhttp-retrofit-volley — hashcode55, May 26 '16 at 14:30

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered May 26 '16 at 14:48

Async task are basic Android way to handle task out of UI thread.

Async task have so many limitation like no orientation-change support, no ability to cancel network calls, as well as no easy way to make API calls in parallel.

With respect to networking 2 things are very important

speed
parallel request

Retrofit win in both speed and parallel network calls , volley is next and Async task is roughly 3 times slower than Retrofit for single request and 13 times slower for 25 request.

Clearly using Async task is bad idea

Image source http://instructure.github.io/blog/2013/12/09/volley-vs-retrofit/

I was already going to give Retrofit a try, but damn.. Looking at those numbers, Retrofit seems to be very quick! — Mauricio Silva, May 26 '16 at 14:49

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered May 26 '16 at 14:32

2

There are a lot of issues with AsyncTasks such as: No orientation, change support no ability to cancel network calls, no easy way to make API calls in parallel.

Basically it means only one AsyncTask is running at a time and it requires multiple API calls run extremely slow.

Rather us Retrofit. You can cleanly and dynamically substitute path-segments, POST/GET variables, into the endpoint and its super fast.

answered May 26 '16 at 14:32

Ryan Godlonton-Shaw

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Didn't knew all that about AsynTasks, will give a try to Retrofit. Thanks! – Mauricio Silva May 26 '16 at 14:45

Android AsyncTask is it a bad idea to use for network-purposes?

2 Answers2