Understanding AOT vs JIT Compilation in Android Development
In the world of Android development, performance is everything. Whether it’s the time an app takes to launch or how smoothly it runs on different devices, developers often face the challenge of choosing the right compilation strategy. Two core technologies play a major role here: Ahead-of-Time (AOT) and Just-in-Time (JIT) compilation. Both approaches transform code into a form that a machine can execute, but they do so in different ways and at different stages of execution. Understanding how they work—and when to use which—can help you build faster and more efficient Android apps. What Is Compilation in Android? Before we dive into AOT and JIT, it’s essential to understand what compilation means in the Android ecosystem. Compilation is the process of converting human-readable source code into machine-executable code. In Android, this step ensures that the app can run on a wide variety of hardware. In older Android versions, apps were compiled using the Dalvik Virtual Machine, w...