Difference between androidx and com.android.support

Question

I was about to use a constraint-layout in my project when I noticed that there are two different dependencies that I can use:

• com.android.support.constraint:constraint-layout
• androidx.constraintlayout:constraintlayout

Is there a difference between these two or some recommendation on which is preferable?

EDIT

Google is stopping support for com.android.support and prompts users to migrate to the new androidx equivalent.

Note: With the release of Android 9.0 (API level 28) there is a new version of the support library called AndroidX which is part of Jetpack. The AndroidX library contains the existing support library and also includes the latest Jetpack components.

You can continue to use the support library. Historical artifacts (those versioned 27 and earlier, and packaged as android.support.*) will remain available on Google Maven. However, all new library development will occur in the AndroidX library.

We recommend using the AndroidX libraries in all new projects. You should also consider migrating existing projects to AndroidX as well.

Here is the official Migration guide and the corresponding library equivalents.

Answer 1

All the support libraries are dropping the v4 v7 v12 v13 etc tags and everything is refactored into the androidx packages.

They are essentially the same but for future reference androidx will be the library that we should use in our apps.

Android studio 3.2 canary that comes out this week (week of May 14, 2018) should have the tool that allows automatic refactoring to the androidx packages. There was an announcement about this at google i/o 2018.

Answer 2

One of the difference between AndroidX and Support libraries is that when you use support libraries, all support libraries must be the same version, but in androidX there is no such thing.

other thing is that in support library, most of the time when you need a component in your app, you have to add dependencies that have so many other thing that you really don't need. but in AndroidX you can add only the dependency that you need and no more.