Android Studio in the Cloud with AI — Firebase Studio
Explore Firebase Studio’s cloud-based development. Learn how it performs for Android development and discover its features, limitations, and potential.
Hi 👋, in this article, let’s take a look at what Firebase Studio is and try running Android Studio on the cloud. 🌥️ Let’s download Now in Android and get a build. 📲 Let’s see how powerful and fast the computer provided by the cloud is. 🚀 Let’s get started! 💻
First of all, I am so sorry for situation in Rafah, Gaza, Palestine. Let’s call for an immediate ceasefire and urge the allowance of humanitarian aid. Let Palestine be free from genocide.
Firebase Studio — The full stack AI workspace
Firebase Studio, introduced by Google on April 9, 2025, is a cloud-based development environment designed to streamline the creation of full-stack AI applications. It integrates tools like Project IDX, Genkit, and Gemini, offering developers a unified platform for rapid prototyping, coding, testing, and deployment.
Key Features:
- Rapid Prototyping: Developers can swiftly generate functional web app prototypes using natural language prompts, images, or drawings through the App Prototyping agent. This feature supports frameworks like Next.js and seamlessly integrates AI functionalities.
- AI Assistance: Leveraging Gemini AI, Firebase Studio provides coding assistance, debugging support, and code documentation. It understands your codebase, facilitating efficient edits and feature additions.
- Coding Workspaces: Built on a Code OSS-based IDE, Firebase Studio offers customizable development environments. Developers can import existing projects from platforms like GitHub, GitLab, or Bitbucket and choose from over 60 pre-built templates supporting various languages and frameworks.
- Integrated Testing and Deployment: The platform includes built-in emulators for real-time app previews and testing. Deployment is streamlined with options to publish apps to Firebase Hosting, Cloud Run, or custom infrastructures.
Limitations and Pricing:
Currently, Firebase Studio is in a preview phase, offering three workspaces at no cost. Members of the Google Developer Program receive up to 30 workspaces during this period. It’s important to note that while the preview is free, certain features, especially those related to AI functionalities, may have usage limits. For instance, deploying apps to Firebase Hosting requires a Cloud Billing account, transitioning projects to the Blaze pricing plan, which operates on a pay-as-you-go model.
Android Studio in the Cloud
Go to the Firebase Studio website and follow the steps shown in the video below to create a workspace with Android Studio. Then, download ‘Now in Android’.
Tadaaa, now you have an Android Studio accessible from your website! 🎉 It’s basically a virtual machine running Ubuntu and Android Studio, streamed to your browser.
For the initial setup, the gradle sync and gradle build times are as follows️
I think the gradle build and sync times are not bad at all. But when I opened the Android emulator, the computer on the cloud started to lag a lot. At the same time, the emulator frequently stopped and showed a ‘Not Responding’ error. So, in my opinion, using Android Studio on the cloud is not very convenient. (It might be an alternative for those with really poor computers.)
To try development with a physical device without the emulator, I tried setting up Virtual Here. However, it kept giving errors on the firebase studio computer. I couldn’t try development with a physical device.
Conclusion
I think Firebase Studio offers some great possibilities. Based on a quick test I did, I don’t think it’s suitable for Android development at the moment. There are still plenty of performance issues, but it’s clearly the start of a new era. However, it can be a lifesaver when you don’t have access to Android Studio on your own or someone else’s PC, and you need to test or try something urgently without waiting for installation
Maybe in the future, instead of needing powerful local machines, we will need fast internet connections.
Firebase Studio might be more suitable for Web, Backend, AI & ML development.
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Happy Coding 👩💻. Thanks for reading🤗. See you in the next articles👋.
