Reddit Improved App Startup Speed Using Baseline Profiles & R8
Article Summary
Reddit just proved that Android's built-in performance tools can deliver massive wins without custom engineering. Their app startup improvements are eye-opening.
The Reddit Android team shares how they leveraged two Android toolchain features (Baseline Profiles and R8 compiler optimizations) to dramatically improve cold start performance. This is a practical case study from a top-tier consumer app with millions of users.
Key Takeaways
- Baseline Profiles precompile critical code paths to reduce JIT overhead
- R8 compiler shrinks and optimizes code during the build process
- Combined approach targets both runtime and build-time optimizations
- Implementation requires minimal code changes to existing apps
Critical Insight
Reddit achieved significant app startup speed improvements by combining Baseline Profiles with R8 optimizations, proving these Android toolchain features deliver real-world performance gains at scale.
