AndroidStudioBenchmark (Firefox Focus for Android)

AndroidStudioBenchmark contains a large codebase to measure the compilation time in Android Studio.

You are probably familiar with the following question:

"Should I buy an i5, i7, or even i9 processor for Android development? How much RAM would be enough? How SSD/M.2/NVMe influence build time?".

AndroidStudioBenchmark is initially created for my personal youtube channel https://www.youtube.com/c/serhiyradkivskyi/about to compare the performance of top laptops to choose the best system for Android development, because I hate to wait lot of time waiting project to be built. And if we are buying laptop for 1000+ USD we want to be sure that it will perform 100% faster than our current machine. But online shops in there most - don't give ability to make real world testing on your project to compare results. And most of tech reviewers describe laptops from designers/youtubers point of view, not that much information from real software developers.

I believe the results will help developers to make the right cost/performance trade-off decision when choosing their next Mac/PC. If you are interested - just continue reading and if you'll find this test useful - it would be very cool if you can share your result and subscribe for my channel - it would be cool to have like minded audiance to share some more test on and get feedback on any professional stuff.

Results of Android Studio Performance testing:

Excel table: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1AeeT_54b2VnovN4ikIsglh2Sc7U0bWxAarDKmGAJFtg/edit?usp=sharing

Videos with test results are in this youtube playlist:

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLzZmmGI65hndugkUKKwZF-r9GG0hFObZW

Browse like no one’s watching. The new Firefox Focus automatically blocks a wide range of online trackers — from the moment you launch it to the second you leave it. Easily erase your history, passwords and cookies, so you won’t get followed by things like unwanted ads.

Testing steps:

1. Install Android Studio:

https://developer.android.com/studio

I was running test on Android Studio 4.1.1, but you can run tests on the latest version (just write the version you have).

I was using default settings while installation almost for all my tests.

Intel HAXM also must be installed if you run on Intel chip (it is installed by default with Android Studio).

I have set 4Gb RAM for my android virtual machine.

And please remember your Android SDK location.

2. Download API Level 28 SDK for this do next:

Go to: Tools -> SDK Manager

Choose Tab: SDK Platforms

Select: Android 9.0 (Pie) API Level 28 and download it.

Close Android Studio after this.

3. Install JDK 8:

https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/javase/javase-jdk8-downloads.html

I have installed: Java SE Development Kit 8u271 (You can also use JDK 11 or 17),

JDK 17 has support for Macbook with M1/MPro chips. It'w better use this if you have such machine, it will give faster results: (https://www.oracle.com/java/technologies/javase/jdk17-archive-downloads.html)

4. Set "JAVA_HOME" path in your Environment variables (System variables):

For me it was: JAVA_HOME: C:\Program Files\Java\jdk1.8.0_271

5. Download AndroidStudioBenchmark repository:

https://github.com/yozhik/AndroidStudioBenchmark

This is a fork of opensource Firefox browser for Android (https://github.com/mozilla-mobile/focus-android).

This is quite a big project (after all gradle modules downloaded it weights 6+Gb).

You can download it as zip file to you fast SSD location.

Unzip it.

6. Restart you system.

Then make sure that no other programs/antivirus/browsers/big massive custom processes running.

Make sure that system is quite idle.

7. Open Android Studio.

Go to File -> Open: select Firefox Focus for Android project from your location and open it.

Wait while all gradle files will be synced, it can take up to 5-10 minutes.

8. Run next command to test speed of your machine doing next work:

Go to: View -> Tools Windows -> Terminal

Type command and press enter:

Windows:

gradlew clean assembleDebug

MacOS/Linux:

./gradlew clean assembleDebug

Wait for assembling to complete. Run it 3 times in a row.

First time it will be your fresh build and it will take a little longer. Two next builds will be normal one.

After each build completes make a screenshot and save time result.

While system assembling watch for you Task Manager how CPU is processing, how much RAM is used, it would be cool if you can watch CPU temperature with some tool like AIDA: https://www.aida64.com/downloads

9. Share results

If you want to share result of your test with the community, please send it to my email: serhiyradkivskiy@gmail.com and I will add it here:

In such format:

Letter theme: AndroidStudioPerformanceTest

Notebook model: HP 250 G5 15.6"

OS: Windows/Linux/MacOS

Android Studio version: 4.1.1/Arctic Fox 2020.3.1 Patch 4/Bumblebee/etc.

CPU model: Intel Core i5-7200U 2.5GHz

RAM: 8Gb DDR4

Hard disk: SSD M.2 256Gb KINGSTON SUV400S37240G (or HDD disk model)

Test results: 8:28min, 5:43, 5:37. And screenshots for them!! (Screenshots are needed for me to be 100% sure that results are not fake)

Additional comments: you can write here whenever you want: The CPU was running all time 100%, laptop was extremely hot near the screen, ram was used for 80% etc, fans where running very hard etc..

Contributor: If you want to leave here a link to your youtube channel/linkedin/other contact info/alias etc - you are welcome, if not - it will be empty.

10. YouTubers and bloggers

You are free to use these results in your videos and articles as well as to run AndroidStudioBenchmark to compare Macs/PCs.

If you decide to record video with this test - it would be very cool if you could upload it to youtube!

Please make sure to add the link to this repository: https://github.com/yozhik/AndroidStudioBenchmark

Please name it: Android Studio Perfomance Test on <You machine name>.

Hashtag: #AndroidStudioPerformanceTest

So everyone could find it and watch and your audiance could repeat steps after you and compare their machine results.

The results show relative performance of Android Studio, compared to other machines running under similar conditions.

arkivanov / AndroidStudioBenchmark