Is there a way to tell what technology was used to build an Android app?

Question

I have an Android App I downloaded and installed, I have also extracted the APK,

Is there some way from the apk file to tell what programming language was used to write the program?

Are there any tools are available to help with this?

What languages can be determined and which ones cannot?

Answer 1

You can do a reverse engineering : (https://www.apkdecompilers.com/ or http://www.javadecompilers.com/apk) decompile the apk and see the code and its programming language.

Answer 2

Normally most android app is build using the following texhnologies:---

1. React Native app
2. Cordova app
3. Native java/kotlin app

To determine the technology, you need to decompile the app first using this link

Then look for "assets" folder. Normally, asset folder should be present at the very top of application hierarchy.

Then you can determine the app technology by the following prediction:--

1. If asset folder is present and there have any file with the extension ".bundle"(mainly the file name is "index.android.bundle") then the app is build using React Native.

2. If the assets folder contain a folder name "www" and "assets/www" contain the following file/folder structure then it is a cordova app.

3. If neighter 1 or 2 is true then the app may be written using native code, i.e using java/kotlin