# Android Studio

23 Hacker News commenters recommended Android Studio and 24 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 10 of 13 months; owners who said how long report a median of 3 years (3 owners).

**Verdict:** The official Android IDE, praised for UI layout tooling and its familiar IntelliJ base; critics most often report crashes and bugs in releases.

## Why people recommend it

- Familiar IntelliJ and JetBrains base (3 comments): "For Android development I still prefer Android Studio (IntelliJ based). Maybe just a habit" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49980118)) "I could run android studio and all my modern JetBrains stuff pretty well." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46669809)) "Android Studio is IntelliJ with tweaks." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47815398))
- Best-known IDE for Android work (3 comments): "Android Studio is a probably the best IDE for this usecase but is not the only way." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47697973)) "Android Studio is actually pretty great." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46883343)) "It's core to mobile development still." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47900848))
- Good UI and responsive layout tooling (2 comments): "it is better and faster for doing specific UI stuff because of the tooling and visualization" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48133933)) "being pretty good for responsive layouts" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48397027))
- Works well on Linux and macOS (2 comments): "I use Android Studio on Linux for the vast majority of my development." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49233381)) "No issues at all on macOS." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49019107))

## What people warn about

- Crashes and bugs in releases (4 comments): "always broke on day 1, regardless of how many preview and candidate builds predated it" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47817107)) "the Android Studio stable releases that are always as buggy as preview releases" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49952513)) "Now I can't even get it to load inside the new version of Android Studio" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46791905))
- Heavy, bloated, large disk footprint (3 comments): "Godot from project setup to running on my Android is way more effortless/lightweight experience than doing the way of AndroidStudio and/or Flutter stuff." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46825759)) "Android studio atill creates hundred of megabutea of hidden stuff on C:" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48938498)) "I'd rather it than the bloat that is Android Studio or Visual Code." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46876663))
- Gets in the way as you advance (2 comments): "then, as you progress, that tool actually gets in the way" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49314961)) "If I'd do anything to Xcode or Android Studio, it'd be to split more things out of them" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46881244))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [JetBrains IDEs](https://hackerapproved.com/p/jetbrains-ides.md): 233 recommend
- [IntelliJ IDEA](https://hackerapproved.com/p/intellij-idea.md): 206 recommend
- [Microsoft Visual Studio](https://hackerapproved.com/p/visual-studio.md): 165 recommend
- [Delphi](https://hackerapproved.com/p/delphi.md): 126 recommend
- [Xcode](https://hackerapproved.com/p/xcode.md): 100 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Android Studio", https://hackerapproved.com/p/android-studio/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).