Popular External Tools

Overview

There are many production tools that are used to simplify the development of Android apps by providing easy analytics, metrics and crash reporting. Here are a few of the best providers for each category.

Analytics

These are the best mobile analytics reporting tools:

• Mixpanel - Strong app analytics platform
• Google Analytics for Firebase - Google’s current Android analytics SDK (com.google.firebase:firebase-analytics). The older Google Analytics for Android SDK docs covered Universal Analytics, which sunset on July 1, 2024.
• Countly - New open-source mobile analytics
• Flurry - Tracks users and time spent on app
• Localytics - All-in-one analytics platform for mobile

Crash Reporting

These are the best crash reporting tools:

• Firebase Crashlytics - Google’s crash reporter for Android. It replaced the retired Firebase Crash Reporting product (whose docs now redirect to Crashlytics) and the Fabric-era Crashlytics SDK, whose final upgrade deadline was November 15, 2020 before Google shut it down. See Crash Reporting with Crashlytics.
• New Relic for Android - Crash reporting and performance optimization
• HockeyApp - Retired. The HockeySDK for Android repository states that “HockeyApp was retired and the SDKs are deprecated” in favor of Visual Studio App Center, which Microsoft in turn scheduled for retirement on March 31, 2025 (with Analytics & Diagnostics support extended to the end of March 2027).
• Rollbar - Robust crash reporting

Feedback and Bug Reporting

• Luciq (formerly Instabug) - In-App Feedback and Bug Reporting

OTA Builds

These are the best tools for distributing beta builds for your apps:

• BuddyBuild - No longer available for Android. The domain now redirects to Apple’s Xcode Cloud, a CI/CD service “designed expressly for Apple developers”.
• TestFairy - Complete Testflight Replacement
• Appaloosa.io - Simple and secure OTA app distribution
• DeployGate - Painless OTA distribution for apps
• HockeyApp - Retired (see the Crash Reporting entry above). Microsoft’s App Center retirement notice recommends Google Play Console test releases for distributing Android test builds.

Push Messaging

These are the best services for easy push messaging:

• Mixpanel Push
• PushBots
• Pushover

A/B Testing

These are the best A/B testing services:

• Optimizely
• Apptimize
• Arise
• Splitforce
• Leanplum
• Taplytics
• Darkly - real-time feature flag management

Device Testing

These are the best resources for testing your app across multiple real and emulated devices.

• TestObject - New site for scheduled or manual black box testing of Android apps or mobile web sites. Allows testing on real devices.
• SauceLabs - Test native mobile apps on a variety of iOS & Android emulator configurations.
• Firebase Test Lab (formerly Google Cloud Test Lab) - Cloud-based testing on real and virtual devices hosted in a Google data center. Deprecated: Firebase states that Test Lab “will be fully shut down on September 30, 2027” and recommends migrating to the Developer Device Platform on Google Cloud.

Performance

• Monkop - Get detailed analysis about performance, security and functionality of your Android apps.