Top 20 Developer Tools SDKs Used in Android Apps on Google Play
We at 42matters have identified the 20 most popular Developer Tools SDKs leveraged by Android apps available on the Android app market.
Developer Tool SDKs help developers build sophisticated mobile apps. Technology vendors and platform providers develop these SDKs — which include programming libraries, APIs, sample code, documentation, and other tools — for third-party app developers that want to build mobile apps that leverage the features and functionalities of their technologies or platforms.
This list is based on our analysis of the millions of mobile applications – and the 2,300+ SDKs they use – that constitute the vast inventory of the Google Play Store. The accompanying data provides readers with a glimpse into the rich mobile application insights generated by the 42matters technology. This data is also available via our APIs, file dumps, Explorer, and SDK Explorer.
The intended purpose of this article is to assist app builders in their search for the perfect Developer Tools SDK to leverage in their app, as well as to give SDK developers insight into their biggest competitors and potential customers. This data collected by our technology may also serve as a useful tool for folks researching the wider mobile app market.
The 20 most widely-integrated developer tools SDKs:
- Android Support Library V4
- Google Firebase
- Android Support Library V7
- RxAndroid/RxJava
- Protobuf
- Android Support Library V13
- Android Design Support Library
- React Native Reanimated
- EventBus
- Checker Framework
- Apache Commons IO
- Apache Commons Codec
- Apache Commons Lang
- Jackson FasterXML
- Butter Knife
- Animal Sniffer
- react-native-device-info
- Ionic Keyboard
- SLF4J
- Nine Old Androids
Android Support Library V4
Check “Android Support Library V4” SDK InsightsAmong all apps utilizing developer tools SDKs, 98.03% have integrated Android Support Library V4. This accounts for 88% of app downloads within the developer tools SDK category.
The Android Support Library V4 SDK includes the largest set of APIs compared to the other libraries, including support for application components, user interface features, accessibility, data handling, network connectivity, and programming utilities.
Use the 42matters SDK Explorer to find all apps that use Android Support Library V4.
Google Firebase
Check “Google Firebase” SDK InsightsAmong all apps utilizing developer tools SDKs, 68.82% have integrated Google Firebase. This accounts for 88% of app downloads within the developer tools SDK category.
Firebase is Google's mobile platform SDK that helps you quickly develop high-quality apps and grow your business.
Use the 42matters SDK Explorer to find all apps that use Google Firebase.
Android Support Library V7
Check “Android Support Library V7” SDK InsightsAmong all apps utilizing developer tools SDKs, 34.92% have integrated Android Support Library V7. This accounts for 88% of app downloads within the developer tools SDK category.
The Android Support Library V7 SDK provides a variety of feature sets that can be included in your app. This includes the v7 appcompat library, v7 cardview library, v7 gridlayout library, and more.
Use the 42matters SDK Explorer to find all apps that use Android Support Library V7.
RxAndroid/RxJava
Check “RxAndroid/RxJava” SDK InsightsAmong all apps utilizing developer tools SDKs, 8.42% have integrated RxAndroid/RxJava. This accounts for 88% of app downloads within the developer tools SDK category.
The RxAndroid/RxJava SDK is a Java VM implementation of Reactive Extensions — a library for composing asynchronous and event-based programs by using observable sequences.
Use the 42matters SDK Explorer to find all apps that use RxAndroid/RxJava.
Protobuf
Check “Protobuf” SDK InsightsAmong all apps utilizing developer tools SDKs, 8.32% have integrated Protobuf. This accounts for 88% of app downloads within the developer tools SDK category.
Protocol Buffers (a.k.a., protobuf) are Google's language-neutral, platform-neutral, extensible mechanism for serializing structured data.
Use the 42matters SDK Explorer to find all apps that use Protobuf.
Android Support Library V13
Check “Android Support Library V13” SDK InsightsAmong all apps utilizing developer tools SDKs, 12.92% have integrated Android Support Library V13. This accounts for 88% of app downloads within the developer tools SDK category.
The Android Support Library V13 SDK adds support for the Fragment user interface pattern with the (FragmentCompat) class and additional fragment support classes.
Use the 42matters SDK Explorer to find all apps that use Android Support Library V13.
Android Design Support Library
Check “Android Design Support Library” SDK InsightsAmong all apps utilizing developer tools SDKs, 18.88% have integrated Android Design Support Library. This accounts for 88% of app downloads within the developer tools SDK category.
The Design Support library SDK adds support for various material design components and patterns for app developers to build upon, such as navigation drawers, floating action buttons (FAB), snackbars, and tabs.
Use the 42matters SDK Explorer to find all apps that use Android Design Support Library.
React Native Reanimated
Check “React Native Reanimated” SDK InsightsAmong all apps utilizing developer tools SDKs, 3.20% have integrated React Native Reanimated. This accounts for 88% of app downloads within the developer tools SDK category.
Use the 42matters SDK Explorer to find all apps that use React Native Reanimated.
EventBus
Check “EventBus” SDK InsightsAmong all apps utilizing developer tools SDKs, 5.19% have integrated EventBus. This accounts for 88% of app downloads within the developer tools SDK category.
EventBus is an open-source library SDK for Android and Java using the publisher/subscriber pattern for loose coupling.
Use the 42matters SDK Explorer to find all apps that use EventBus.
Checker Framework
Check “Checker Framework” SDK InsightsAmong all apps utilizing developer tools SDKs, 3.16% have integrated Checker Framework. This accounts for 88% of app downloads within the developer tools SDK category.
Use the 42matters SDK Explorer to find all apps that use Checker Framework.
Apache Commons IO
Check “Apache Commons IO” SDK InsightsAmong all apps utilizing developer tools SDKs, 4.81% have integrated Apache Commons IO. This accounts for 88% of app downloads within the developer tools SDK category.
The Apache Commons SDK is an Apache project focused on all aspects of reusable Java components.
Use the 42matters SDK Explorer to find all apps that use Apache Commons IO.
Apache Commons Codec
Check “Apache Commons Codec” SDK InsightsAmong all apps utilizing developer tools SDKs, 3.89% have integrated Apache Commons Codec. This accounts for 88% of app downloads within the developer tools SDK category.
Use the 42matters SDK Explorer to find all apps that use Apache Commons Codec.
Apache Commons Lang
Check “Apache Commons Lang” SDK InsightsAmong all apps utilizing developer tools SDKs, 3.33% have integrated Apache Commons Lang. This accounts for 88% of app downloads within the developer tools SDK category.
Use the 42matters SDK Explorer to find all apps that use Apache Commons Lang.
Jackson FasterXML
Check “Jackson FasterXML” SDK InsightsAmong all apps utilizing developer tools SDKs, 4.03% have integrated Jackson FasterXML. This accounts for 88% of app downloads within the developer tools SDK category.
The Jackson FasterXML SDK is a suite of data-processing tools for Java, including the flagship streaming JSON parser / generator library, matching data-binding library, and additional data format modules to process data encoded in Avro, BSON, CBOR, CSV, Smile, (Java) Properties, Protobuf, XML or YAML. It can even be used for the large set of data format modules to support widely used data types such as Guava, Joda, PCollections, and many, many more.
Use the 42matters SDK Explorer to find all apps that use Jackson FasterXML.
Butter Knife
Check “Butter Knife” SDK InsightsAmong all apps utilizing developer tools SDKs, 5.36% have integrated Butter Knife. This accounts for 88% of app downloads within the developer tools SDK category.
Annotate fields with BindView and a view ID for Butter Knife to find and automatically cast the corresponding view in your layout.
Use the 42matters SDK Explorer to find all apps that use Butter Knife.
Animal Sniffer
Check “Animal Sniffer” SDK InsightsAmong all apps utilizing developer tools SDKs, 2.65% have integrated Animal Sniffer. This accounts for 88% of app downloads within the developer tools SDK category.
Animal Sniffer is an SDK that helps you verify that classes compiled with a newer JDK/API are compatible with an older JDK/API.
Use the 42matters SDK Explorer to find all apps that use Animal Sniffer.
react-native-device-info
Check “react-native-device-info” SDK InsightsAmong all apps utilizing developer tools SDKs, 2.15% have integrated react-native-device-info. This accounts for 88% of app downloads within the developer tools SDK category.
The react-native-device-info SDK offers device information for React Native for iOS and Android.
Use the 42matters SDK Explorer to find all apps that use react-native-device-info.
Ionic Keyboard
Check “Ionic Keyboard” SDK InsightsAmong all apps utilizing developer tools SDKs, 3.48% have integrated Ionic Keyboard. This accounts for 88% of app downloads within the developer tools SDK category.
Ionic Keyboard is a keyboard plugin for Cordova. This SDK has been designed to work seamlessly with cordova-plugin-ionic-webview, so make sure you have it installed first.
Use the 42matters SDK Explorer to find all apps that use Ionic Keyboard.
Among all apps utilizing developer tools SDKs, 3.86% have integrated SLF4J. This accounts for 88% of app downloads within the developer tools SDK category.
The Simple Logging Facade for Java (SLF4J) serves as a simple facade or abstraction for various logging frameworks (e.g. java.util.logging, logback, log4j) allowing the end user to plug in the desired logging framework at deployment time.
Use the 42matters SDK Explorer to find all apps that use SLF4J.
Nine Old Androids
Check “Nine Old Androids” SDK InsightsAmong all apps utilizing developer tools SDKs, 5.58% have integrated Nine Old Androids. This accounts for 88% of app downloads within the developer tools SDK category.
Nine Old Androids is an Android library SDK for using the Honeycomb (Android 3.0) animation API on all versions of the platform back to 1.0!
Use the 42matters SDK Explorer to find all apps that use Nine Old Androids.
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