this post was submitted on 15 Dec 2025
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Hi all, much of what I have read recommends Android Studio to create Android apps, but I'm a bit wary since it's developed by Google. Are there any other good alternatives that are ideally open-source?

I am currently running Fedora 43 KDE, and I use VSCodium as my main code editor, mostly Python at the moment. Are there any plugins I could use to enable Kotlin support/specific Android dev stuff in VSCodium?

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[–] FrameXX@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 11 hours ago)

I am not well informed, but I would expect that a lot of the tools that come with Android Studio can be installed as separate CLI utilities you can control from the command line, but maybe I am wrong. You will get worse IDE integration than with Android studio, that's for sure.

[–] BlackEco@lemmy.blackeco.com 24 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Android Studio is a fork of JetBrains' IntelliJ. You could use the latter, which has support for Kotlin and Android, but I'm unsure how feature complete it is compared to Android Studio (JetBrains say "includes the Android Studio's functionality"^1)

[–] sbeak@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 day ago

I'll tty that then, and see how it goes.

[–] somegeek@programming.dev 15 points 1 day ago* (last edited 21 hours ago) (2 children)

You're developing for a google platform. Doent really matter if the IDE is backed by google. and you have a LOT more to do with google if you are developing for android. The platform is locked in to google. Get used to it.

[–] MasterNerd@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Android (currently) is an open-source operating system. Just because you develop for it doesn't mean your reliant on Google, or have to interact with them in any capacity.

[–] erebion@news.erebion.eu 3 points 1 day ago

If Google decides to, it can remove anything from AOSP, as it has done countless of times. Android is deeply controlled by Google.

[–] MonkderVierte@lemmy.zip 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

You're arguing that on Lemmy, where a lot more than average people use a custom ROM or app store.

[–] somegeek@programming.dev 3 points 21 hours ago

I use custom ROM and fdroid myself. It's still a google product. Specially if you have ever developed for android you know you just have to play Google's games. The same way if you use Java you have to play Oracle's games. Or if you want to be an aws engineer (or whatever they are called) you have to... You get the gist.

Google has deeo control over tge android ecosystem and the only reason it's somewhat open source currently is the GPL licensing of the linux kernel. And they are limiting it day by day, while it's getting harder to install custom roms on newer phones.

The smartphone industry is absolutely garbage. Android and ios aren't very different.

and btw, open source doesn't mean FOSS. It just means they couldn't find a legal way to make it fully proprietary.

[–] atzanteol@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 day ago

It's developed by jetbrains. The SDK, which you would need for any development, it built by Google.

What are you wary of?

[–] Mihies@programming.dev 2 points 1 day ago

Another alternative that I know of is Rider which supports Android apps with .NET. But it's not OSS nor supports Kotlin. I'd like to see an alternative as well, but I fear unless Jetbrains creates something else (and most probably they won't) there will be no other options.

[–] entwine@programming.dev 0 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Nit picking: why use VSCodium? It's better to use Eclipse Theia instead, which is built from scratch and runs its own extension repository.

...and for the old timers: NO! Eclipse Theia is NOT the Eclipse you're thinking of

[–] sbeak@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

After a quick search, Eclipse "Theia" has a whole load of AI marketing and is the alternative to "GitHub CoPilot, Cursor, etc". No thanks.

[–] entwine@programming.dev 3 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

That's just AI marketing bandwagon crap, probably fishing for funding. The editor has been around for a few years, and it had nothing to do with AI until very recently.

[–] sbeak@sopuli.xyz 1 points 3 hours ago
[–] sbeak@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's what I'm used to and it's got a good selection of extensions that are useful to me.

[–] entwine@programming.dev 2 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

VS Codium uses open vsx, which is the extension registry built and run by the Eclipse team. Whatever extensions you're using will also work on Theia.

[–] sbeak@sopuli.xyz 1 points 3 hours ago

oh, that's pretty cool actually :0