UI Performance Comparison of Jetpack Compose and XML in Native Android Applications

Sammanfattning: This thesis explores the differences in UI performance between Jetpack Compose, a modern declarative UI toolkit, and traditional XML in the context of UI design for native Android applications. The aim is to provide developers with insights into the potential tradeoffs associated with each approach, particularly in terms of the end user experience. In order to achieve this, a series of benchmark tests were conducted on two prototype applications: one developed with XML and the other with Jetpack Compose, in order to evaluate the UI performance in various scenarios of real-world use cases. The data collected was subsequently analyzed and discussed, in order to evaluate which UI design approach delivers better performance for the end user. The test results indicate that Jetpack Compose and XML excel at different use cases. Jetpack Compose is demonstrated to have faster app startup time and rendering time for navigation and animation, whereas XML delivers smoother and faster rendering time when scrolling through a layout. Notably, Jetpack Compose has also shown an improvement in UI performance since previous works were conducted.