The pack of standard open source Android projects

Let's consider the pack of popular open source GitHub libraries that are likely used in the majority of Android-based apps .

Retrofit

License : Apache 2.0

GitHub Stars : 20,370

This Android open source project is able to convert REST API into Java interface. Retrofit allows you to write a qualitative code in pure Java by means of using almost any RESTful API.

It is worth mentioning that the core features include dynamically built requests, errors proceeding, and the capability to transfer files. Also, this Git open source library gives you a powerful infrastructure for authentication, and API interaction as well as sending web requests by means of OkHttp .

Retrofit automatically converts JSON into objects with the help of another open source Android repository called Gson . All the library's logic is built upon annotations that allow the creation of dynamic requests within a server.

In addition, as for the Android-based library, it is pretty light and relatively easy to use.

Advantages:

• Easy to use & install
• Great documentation
• Lightness

Disadvantages:

• Lack of images loading support

Glide

License : Apache 2.0

GitHub stars : 14,600

Loading images is a quite widespread task with Android development . Glide Android open source repository is able to download and display pictures from multiple sources. It also takes care of caching and memory consumption.

However, to find the balance between the quality and memory usage, you need to change Glide's default configuration from RGB-555 to ARGB-8888.

By taking this easy step, you will increase the total quality of images and preserve the balance of memory consumption. To make it clear, take a look at the graph underneath that shows the memory consumption in the analogous open source for Android.

Glide's memory consumption in comparison with Picasso

Advantages:

• Fast loading
• Low memory consumption
• GIF support

Disadvantages:

• Size in 430 kb

Butter Knife

License : Apache 2.0

GitHub stars : 15,500

As you know, the necessity for using a seemingly repetitive code during the project appears quite often. In order to keep up with a good programming style, you should avoid using so-called boilerplate code . For this purpose, open source Android libraries like Butter Knife were created. This library uses an InjectView annotation to remove some boilerplate and shorten your code.

Advantages:

• Easy setup
• Lets you write less code
• Good performance

Disadvantages:

• No Pojo Injection support