Android NDK

Not to be confused with Android SDK.

The Android Native Development Kit (NDK) provides a cross-compiling tool for compiling code written in C/C++ can be compiled to ARM, or x86 native code (or their 64-bit variants) for Android.^[4][5] The NDK uses the Clang compiler to compile C/C++. GCC was included until NDK r17, but removed in r18 in 2018.

Android NDK

Developer(s)	Google
Initial release	June 2009; 15 years ago (2009-06)[1]
Stable release	r27c[2]  / 16 October 2024; 5 months ago (16 October 2024)
Repository	github.com/android/ndk
Written in	C and C++
Operating system	Windows Vista and later OS X 10.10 and later Linux
Platform	IA-32 (Windows only) or x86-64 (Windows,[3] macOS and Linux)
Available in	English
Type	SDK
Website	developer.android.com/ndk/

Overview

Native libraries can be called from Java code running under the Android Runtime using System.loadLibrary, part of the standard Android Java classes.^[6][7]

Command-line tools can be compiled with the NDK and installed using adb.^[8]

Android uses Bionic as its C library, and the LLVM libc++ as its C++ Standard Library. The NDK also includes a variety of other APIs:^[9] zlib compression, OpenGL ES or Vulkan graphics, OpenSL ES audio, and various Android-specific APIs for things like logging, access to cameras, or accelerating neural networks.

The NDK includes support for CMake and its own ndk-build (based on GNU Make). Android Studio supports running either of these from Gradle. Other third-party tools allow integrating the NDK into Eclipse^[10] and Visual Studio.^[11]

For CPU profiling, the NDK also includes simpleperf^[12] which is similar to the Linux perf tool, but with better support for Android and specifically for mixed Java/C++ stacks.