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A git submodule is a record within a host git repository that points to a specific commit in another external repository. Submodules are very static and only track specific commits. Submodules do not track git refs or branches and are not automatically updated when the host repository is updated.
The first important advantage to using submodules is that submodules allow you to keep the commit history of the component you're including in your project. Assuming the component you're adding is publicly available as a git repository, incorporating this component without the use of submodules presents a problem.
In most cases, Git submodules are used when your project becomes more complex, and while your project depends on the main Git repository, you might want to keep their change history separate. Using the above as an example, the Room repository depends on the House repository, but they operate separately.
If you pass --recurse-submodules to the git clone command, it will automatically initialize and update each submodule in the repository, including nested submodules if any of the submodules in the repository have submodules themselves.
A subproject is a generic term for one of three types of nesting:
Reference documentation
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