From Snail to Sonic: How Baseline Profiles Supercharged Meetup's Android App
Article Summary
Meetup cut their Android app startup time by 36% without writing much code. Here's how a simple Google technology delivered massive performance gains.
Colin Lee from Meetup's engineering team implemented baseline profiles, a Google technology that pre-compiles Java Virtual Machine functions. The result? Cold app startup dropped from 970ms to 620ms on a Pixel 3.
Key Takeaways
- Baseline profiles reduced cold startup time from 970ms to 620ms (36% faster)
- Previous refactoring efforts only achieved 10% performance improvements
- Technology pre-compiles JVM functions before they're needed
- Team plans A/B testing to measure business metric impact
Critical Insight
Meetup achieved a 36% reduction in Android app startup time using baseline profiles, a rare easy performance win that creates smoother first impressions for new users.
