Scaling Android Apps with Gradle Build Types and Product Flavors

Sahil Jain from OLX reveals how they manage multiple market versions of their Android app without maintaining separate codebases. The secret? Strategic use of Gradle's build configuration.

OLX operates across multiple markets, each with unique feature requirements. Their Android team needed a scalable way to handle different app versions, environments, and feature flags while keeping the codebase maintainable. This article breaks down their Gradle configuration strategy.

Key Takeaways

• Build types handle lifecycle configs: debug disables Crashlytics, release enables obfuscation
• Product flavors let you ship different app versions from one codebase
• buildConfigField for code access, resValue for manifest and XML resources
• Feature flags like SHOW_ADS toggle per flavor, overriding default configs

Part 2 of this series dives into how OLX uses source sets to further organize code per build variant (hint: it gets even more powerful).