# Blazing Fast Android Builds

DevFeed: [Blazing Fast Android Builds](<https://devfeed.tech/articles/blazing-fast-android-builds-24599.md>)

Original publisher: [Read original article](<https://blog.gradle.org/blazing-fast-android-builds>)

Author: Stefan Oehme

Published: 2017-05-17T04:00:00Z

Content type: release

Language: en

Sources: [The Gradle Blog](<https://devfeed.tech/sources/the-gradle-blog.md>)

Topics: [Android Gradle Plugin](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/android-gradle-plugin.md>), [Android Studio](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/android-studio.md>), [Gradle](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/gradle.md>), [Mobile](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/mobile.md>), [ide](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/ide.md>), [Development](<https://devfeed.tech/topics/development.md>)

Tags: [android](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/android.md>), [android-gradle-plugin](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/android-gradle-plugin.md>), [android-studio](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/android-studio.md>), [development](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/development.md>), [gradle](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/gradle.md>), [ide](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/ide.md>), [improvements](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/improvements.md>), [mobile-development](<https://devfeed.tech/tags/mobile-development.md>)

## AI overview

The article introduces the first preview of the Android Gradle plugin 3.0, based on Gradle 4.0 M2, and describes performance improvements for builds with many subprojects. It explains the complexity of Android application builds and the performance challenges addressed by the Android Studio and Gradle teams.

## Source excerpt

At Google I/O today, the Android Studio team released the first preview version of the Android Gradle plugin 3.0, based on Gradle 4.0 M2. It brings major performance improvements, especially for builds with plenty of subprojects. In this blog post, we will explain what you can expect from this preview version and how the Android Studio and Gradle team achieved these improvements. Before diving into this let's look back at what goals led to the creation of the current Android build system. The Complexity of Mobile Development Developing mobile applications is inherently more complex than building traditional web or server applications of similar size. An app needs to support a wide array of devices with different peripherals, different screen sizes, and comparatively slow hardware. The popular freemium model adds another layer of variety, requiring different code paths for free and paid versions of the app. In order to provide a fast, slim app for every device and target audience, the build system needs to do a lot of the heavy lifting up front. To improve developer productivity and to reduce runtime overhead, the Android build tools provide several languages and source generators, e.g. Java, RenderScript, AIDL and Native code. Packaging an app together with its libraries involves highly customizable merging and shrinking steps. The Android Studio team was faced with the challenge of automating all of these without exposing the underlying complexity to developers. Developers can focus on writing their production code. Last but not least, developers expect a build tool to manage their dependencies, be extensible and provide deep IDE integration. Gradle is ideally suited for those challenges and the Android Studio team created a fantastic Android build tool on top of the Gradle platform. The performance challenge No matter how elegant and extensible the plugin and no matter how seamless the IDE integration, when things take too long, developers become unproductive and