Google Volley vs Android-Async-Http
I am looking into both these Android Http Networking libraries.
I would like some peoples experiences with using the two libraries. Personally I have always used the http://loopj.com/android-async-http/ library quite happily. But it was recently suggested to me to use the Volley Framework.
What benefits will I get from one over the other?
From my reading so far, Volley incorporates a number of nice features such as Image Loading, Request Caching, Request Cancelling all in one library.
My current use case / specifications:
Consume web services from my android applications.
- Receive JSON Objects from web service
- Easy To integrate with the GUI
- Stability and Reliability over raw performance
- Long term maintenance and support of the library.
- Ease of use / ease of implementation
From some reading up on SE:
"Volley is all good but, On the minus side, it is one undocumented, unsupported, "throw the code over the wall and do an I|O presentation on it" library."
So I think its clear Volley might get the tick for features, But how well documented and maintained is it? If I decide to use it will there still be support for it 4 years down the line?
Answer
Volley and Android Async Http are different things.
Android Async Http: Is a powerful Http client. Offers some functionalities as REST helper and integration for JSON parsing with other libraries.
Volley: Is a REST helper/library that helps you to deal with async requests and image loading. Volley it's not an http client. Volley uses the SDK http clients (the apache or the httpclient depending on the API level) if you don't provide one, but a common client for volley is OkHttp (https://goo.gl/nl2DfN). You can integrate Volley with Gson easily as well.
From my point of view, as much responsibility you give to a single library, less customization you have and more unneeded code you'll add. That's the reason libraries as Android Async Http or ION are losing grip nowadays and other options like the Square solutions (Okio + OkHttp + Retrofit + Moshi + Picasso - Those are five libraries) are gaining grip. So here you have 5 libraries that can be used separately as standalone or tied together as 2, 3 or 4. That's flexibility and power.
For further reading on this take a look at this answer.