ACS Lite is becoming heavier with every release – Please focus on optimization and modularization

[TheSunCipher]

Seriously, what is the goal of this project now?

To build a mobile Android IDE, or to stuff every possible feature into it until the battery dies?

AndroidIDE was created to bring Android development to Android devices. The goal was to build apps efficiently, not to run half a desktop operating system in the background.

Instead of focusing on optimization, every release keeps adding more bloat:

• AI integrations everywhere
• Ubuntu environment
• More background services
• More RAM usage
• More battery drain
• Hundreds of themes nobody asked for

Meanwhile the basics are getting worse.

Why are we shipping AI integrations that require API keys? Most developers already have access to AI services through their browser or dedicated apps. If they need help, they can copy code and ask any AI in seconds. Nobody is buying API credits just to use a button inside an IDE.

And the language server? It consumes resources constantly while providing autocomplete suggestions that are often irrelevant, inaccurate, or completely disconnected from the actual code being written. Instead of helping productivity, it frequently gets in the way.

Please stop treating optimization as an afterthought.

Battery life matters.
RAM usage matters.
Startup time matters.
Build performance matters.
Stability matters.

An IDE does not become better simply because it has more features. It becomes better when it lets developers get work done efficiently.

AndroidIDE showed that mobile development could be practical on Android. At least learn something from that philosophy.

Less bloat.
More optimization.
Less gimmicks.
More performance.

[TheSunCipher]

My observations from real-world usage:

AndroidIDE (itsaky.androidide):

• ~500 mAh/hour during active development
• Much better battery life

ACS Lite v4:

• ~1100 mAh/hour during active development
• Installation size around 7 GB
• Multiple running services consuming large amounts of RAM
• Significantly higher power consumption during Gradle sync and compilation

Device:

• OnePlus 15 Pro Max

What I would like to see:

1. Minimal installation profile

   • Java/Kotlin
   • Gradle
   • Android SDK
   • Android NDK

2. Optional components

   • AI integrations
   • Ubuntu environment
   • Flutter
   • Python
   • Box64
   • iOS related tooling
   • Extra themes

3. Better battery optimization

4. Better memory optimization

5. Ability to disable language servers completely

[Wadamzmail]

@TheSunCipher that's right

[Thepffffff]

Box64 is NOT an option here, it's a requirement. The NDK is NOT built for arm64 devices and the arm64 NDK's that exist are unofficial and only have one or two versions compiled for arm64 making box64 into a requirement.

[SunCipher]

Context & Device Telemetry

The following regressions have been consistently observed and benchmarked across devices, ranging from a mid-range iQOO Z5 (Snapdragon 778G) to a top-tier flagship OnePlus 15 Pro (2026 Fleet).

Metric	Original AndroidIDE (v-2.7.1)	This Fork (com.tom.rv2 / com.nullij.*)
Idle Current Drain	~90 - 100 mA (Healthy baseline)	1.6 Amps (1600 mA) to 500 mAh constant
Active Screen-On Time (SOT)	12 - 16 Hours	Hardly 5 Hours
App Info Storage Footprint	~1.0 GB - 1.5 GB (Clean SDK/JDK)	10 GB+ (Log explosion / Cache bloating)
Thermal Peak (Hello World)	Room Temperature	Spikes past 60°C (Forced Thermal Throttling)

---

1. The "Alpha Version" Fallacy & Package Hopping

Whenever developers open performance issues, the standard defense mechanism from the maintainers is: "Do you even understand what Alpha means? We are working on it."

Let’s be technically honest: Spanning over years across 8 different versions iterations (from com.tom.rv2 to com.nullij.androidcodestudio) every few months without delivering a single stable architectural core is not an "Alpha phase"—it is a failure in memory management and baseline optimization. Aakash Yadav single-handedly built a lean, stable native compiler. This project has turned it into an unoptimized feature-dump.

---

2. Critical Architectural & Technical Breakdowns

📂 Storage Explosion (Bloat)

• The Root Cause: The hybrid emulation layer (Ubuntu/PRoot) fails to cycle file system caches and clean up dead artifacts between incremental builds.
• Log Proliferation: Multiple unwanted tools, analysis and logs files, Create new files with using symblink or soft links, unoptimized mechanism, eating up physical UFS flash memory.

⚡ Process Proliferation on "Hello World"

• Compiling a blank, single-activity project spawns 5 to 7 redundant background processes taking roughly 500MB RAM each. (3.5 to 4GB seriously? loading tools without requirments)
• The main UI thread is constantly choked with heavy, unoptimized animations. Opening the settings panel without any active project introduces a jarring 2 to 4 seconds input lag.

🧱 UI Thread Deadlocks

• Toast notifications, build errors, or success alerts frequently freeze on the screen permanently. The UI becomes completely non-responsive, forcing the user to manually Force Stop the app from Android settings and relaunch it.

🛠️ Broken LSP & Classpath Routing

• When typing simple declarations like import com., the Language Server Protocol (LSP) fails to scope the directory. Instead of suggesting the Android SDK (com.android.*), it indexes the IDE’s own source code, throwing trash suggestions like androidcode, javalanguage, gradle, and fork.
• Running a recursive indexing engine on the IDE's internal source code in the background is precisely what pins the CPU at 50 -60% and pulls 1.6-Ah of current. (adb output, which manipu**ting your own resources indicator by showing such as 5% cpu or 40Mib RAM we are not fool)

---

3. 🔒 Security & Privacy Red Flags

[!CRITICAL]
1. Unjustified Directory Permissions: Since the IDE utilizes its own internal storage and documents provider interface, why does it enforce mandatory MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE (All Files Access)? There is zero architectural justification for an offline-first IDE to demand total visibility over a user's entire private storage.

2. Closed-Source API Key Harvesting Risk: Gating a broken AI agent behind heavy obfuscation while actively requesting users' private Gemini, ChatGPT, or Claude API keys is highly suspicious. Over 90% of developers already use browser-based Pro plans; forcing API key inputs into a logging-heavy, unoptimized environment raises severe data exfiltration and telemetry concerns.

---

4. Mandatory Bloat (The CMake Dictatorship)

Warning

Stop treating developers like sheep. If a developer needs the Android NDK or CMake, they have the competence to install it via the SDK manager. Forcing an un-skippable, heavy CMake/NDK dependency onto users who only want to compile pure Java/Kotlin code is textbook bloatware.

• Current Feature Ratio: 20% work as intended, 40% are completely broken, and 40% actively sabotage the development workspace.

---

You are not building Mobile IDE you just MELTING HARDWARES via Garbage Process 👏

Expected Action Items for Maintainers

• Implement a strict Log Rotation policy to cap storage expansion.
• Enforce Scoped Storage and drop the mandatory MANAGE_EXTERNAL_STORAGE requirement.
• Add a toggle to completely kill/disable the AI Agent, CMake, and the LSP background indexing loops.
• Gracefully terminate all zombie Gradle/PRoot daemons when the app goes idle.
• Atleast test it on mobiles not on i9 14900k before releasing.
  Stop focusing on UI aesthetics and feature flexing. Fix the leaks, respect the host OS hardware, and build something stable.

[gogogagaio]

@TheSunCipher @Thepffffff @SunCipher you guys are actually don't know what you are doing and this is NOT AndroidIDE omg guys AI is really fucked you up and why I'm not facing any of the issues you guys mentioned? Realme 9i with Snapdragon 680 stable performance and this is NEW IDE not AndroidIDE fork how many times developer has to explain to people like you
Show some respect an IDE created by a single developer your job to be respectful and report issues and help the developer to fix those and give him time not rush him he's not a machine he's a human after all you properly Don't know what am talking about you don't even know what "alpha" means
You are properly a kid who spent 24 hours sitting and have nothing in life to do just to come here playing blame game instead of helping the developer to fix the issues and help improve the IDE
Maybe go use different IDEs why you using acs? It's clearly for people not like you so just go use AndroidIDE Instead and what "red flag" if you don't feel secure why the fuck are you even using the IDE in the first place, oh my god it's like am talking to a 10 year old

I hope the developer actually ban you I hate people like you in the this community

The dumbass running a native project and he wants kotlin/java to compile c/c++ 😂😂🤣 pathetic

[Wadamzmail]

@TheSunCipher @Thepffffff @SunCipher you guys are actually don't know what you are doing and this is NOT AndroidIDE omg guys AI is really fucked you up and why I'm not facing any of the issues you guys mentioned? Realme 9i with Snapdragon 680 stable performance and this is NEW IDE not AndroidIDE fork how many times developer has to explain to people like you
Show some respect an IDE created by a single developer your job to be respectful and report issues and help the developer to fix those and give him time not rush him he's not a machine he's a human after all you properly Don't know what am talking about you don't even know what "alpha" means
You are properly a kid who spent 24 hours sitting and have nothing in life to do just to come here playing blame game instead of helping the developer to fix the issues and help improve the IDE
Maybe go use different IDEs why you using acs? It's clearly for people not like you so just go use AndroidIDE Instead and what "red flag" if you don't feel secure why the fuck are you even using the IDE in the first place, oh my god it's like am talking to a 10 year old

I hope the developer actually ban you I hate people like you in the this community

The dumbass running a native project and he wants kotlin/java to compile c/c++ 😂😂🤣 pathetic

bro we're in github
can you reply with respectful sentences please

[nullij]

@TheSunCipher
Hey, thank you for the feedback.
A few things to clarify. ACS Lite is not a fork of AndroidIDE, it is written from scratch with a completely different architecture and goal.
The Ubuntu environment, LSP, and background services are not bloat, they are what makes actual Android development possible on a mobile device. Without them you cannot build, run, or get intelligent code assistance.
That said, optimization is not an afterthought. The last update alone fixed six sources of memory leaks that caused memory usage to grow with every project open/close cycle, improved memory management for large projects, fixed background services staying alive after the editor was closed, and fixed an OOM crash during builds. These are not small changes.
As for the themes, there are currently 6 themes in ACS Lite. Not hundreds.
The Kotlin LSP works correctly and was just updated to the latest version which now respects the project level OpenJDK instead of forcing OpenJDK 21. If you have experienced specific issues please provide reproducible steps instead of broad claims.
ACS Lite has zero iOS related tooling. It is an Android IDE built for Android devices. That claim is completely false.
Regarding the claim of 5 to 7 background processes consuming 500MB RAM each totaling 3.5 to 4GB, that is simply not true and is not reproducible. A blank single activity project does not spawn anywhere near that. If you have actual evidence please share logs, not assumptions.
The claim about 2 to 4 seconds input lag when opening settings is also false. No such lag exists and has never been reported by any other user.
As for accusing ACS of manipulating its own resource indicators through adb output, that is a serious and completely baseless accusation. ACS does not and cannot manipulate adb output. These are system level readings that the IDE has no access to modify.
Regarding Security and Privacy, ACS Lite does not collect or upload any personal data. If you have concerns you are welcome to monitor all network traffic using tools like Reqable and verify this yourself. Nobody is forcing you to use ACS Lite and if you do not feel comfortable using it that is completely fine.
Also worth pointing out that ACS Lite is still in alpha. Alpha means the software is in early development, features are being added, performance is being improved and things are not final. If you are expecting a fully polished and optimized product from an alpha release then you clearly do not understand what alpha means.
I am always open to genuine feedback backed by real evidence. But several claims in this issue are either exaggerated, inaccurate, or completely false.