Difference among mavenCentral(), jCenter() and mavenLocal()?

Question

Actually, I am studying on build.gradle file. In some cases, I got that sometimes they are using mavenCentral(), jCenter() and mavenLocal() in repositories section. Sometimes they also using URL. So some question arises in my mind?

i) Difference among mavenCentral(), jCenter() and mavenLocal()?

ii) Which one should I use most?

iii) Is there any performance related issue?

Answer 1

Actually, all 3 are Maven repository. We use these maven repositories to our build by using its URL address or its location in the local file system.

By using URL:

repositories {     maven { url("https://plugins.gradle.org/m2/") } } 

By using local file system:

repositories {     maven { url '../maven-repo' } } 

Gradle has three “aliases” which we can use when we are adding Maven repositories to our build. These aliases are:

1. mavenCentral():

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The mavenCentral() alias means that dependencies are fetched from the central Maven 2 repository.

repositories {     mavenCentral() } 

The URL used to access this repository is https://repo.maven.apache.org/maven2/. The name of the repository is MavenRepo.

2. jcenter():

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The jcenter() alias means that dependencies are fetched from the Bintray’s JCenter Maven repository

3. mavenLocal():

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The mavenLocal() alias means that dependencies are fetched from the local Maven repository.

Resource Link:

1. Gradle: Dependency Management

2. Maven RepositoryHandler

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Jcenter vs. mavenCentral

jcenter() and mavenCentral() is a repository for the Gradle plugin in Android Studio

Earlier versions of Android Studio used mavenCentral(), and after some time, it switched to jcenter.

This is because jcenter() is superior to mavenCentral() in terms of performance and memory footprint:

• Jcenter is the world's largest Java repository
• Jcenter through the CDN service, using the https protocol, highly secured, and Android Studio 0.8 version mavenCentral() using the http protocol
• Jcenter is a superset of mavenCentral, including many additional jars
• Jcenter performance is better than mavenCentral
• mavenCentral will automatically download many IDE-related indexes, and these are used less often which are not required.

Resource Link： https://www.jianshu.com/p/bce437eeb3d3

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Last Update: Into the Sunset on May 1st: Bintray, JCenter, GoCenter, and ChartCenter

Update: 24-02-2021 of Android Developers Page:

Announcement Link: https://jfrog.com/blog/into-the-sunset-bintray-jcenter-gocenter-and-chartcenter/

Maven Central Link: https://maven.apache.org/repository/index.html

Work Around:

repositories {     mavenLocal()      //  jcenter()       // <- remove it     mavenCentral()  // <- add it          maven { url "https://plugins.gradle.org/m2/" }     maven { url "https://repo.spring.io/plugins-release/" } } 

Answer 2

As per Android Developer page -

JCenter deprecation and end of service

JFrog, the company that maintains the JCenter artifact repository used by many Android projects, recently announced the deprecation and upcoming retirement of JCenter. According to the announcement, JCenter will allow downloads of existing artifacts until February 1, 2022.

Developers who publish artifacts on JCenter should start migrating their packages to a new host, such as Maven Central.