We just discussed the pros and cons of using the third party libraries in the app development. Well, with that blog you must have decided whether the pros are heavier than the cons or not. If you think third party libraries are a good thing to use, the second question popping your mind would be how can you choose a reliable third party library? Now, obviously when using a third party library or not is a question, which one to pick and which one to ditch would be a bigger question.

Don’t worry we are here to guide you. It’s better to know about the libraries during your Android or iPhone training. This will help you use them during your training and know how to deal with them and whether it is a really good idea to use them or not? Let’s get started with how you can choose the correct library while development.

Choose Right Library For Your App Development

1) The Popularity of the Library

Development platforms like GitHub have built-in crowdsource evaluation. Check on these platforms how much ratings have your chosen library has received. If the ratings are good, the next thing you need to check is that what are the problems reported for your library. If the library has support from a good amount of developers, it means the library is sufficiently popular and quality rich.

2) Active Developer’s Community

Good and popular libraries have an active developers community. They make sure of their maintenance and growth. They will be on their toes to solve any issues arising in the library and keep it up to date for every new version. Such libraries are the best to use as they are never going to be abandoned.

3) Author’s Reliability

A background check on the author won’t be a bad idea. A reliable author won’t be publishing a buggy library. And of course, you don’t want to get stuck with a buggy and left out the library. Check whether the Author is active on Github? Whether he has only one library active or have multiple libraries published? Are they actively helping the user of the library with their issues? Do they fix the bugs or accept the pull requests? A library that has support from its author is supposed to stay here for the long run, remain stable, and have framework updates.

4) Open Source

You can’t check the quality or the performance without having any access to the library’s code. Hence, it is important for your third-party library to be open source. Also debugging wouldn’t be possible and the security risk involved without the transparency counts.

5) Proper License

The choice of the library also depends on the license it has. Certain libraries can have limited use license. Check that before you use it and then regret. For example, there are certain libraries which can have restrictions for commercial product release. If your app is a commercial product and you have used this library, it can be an issue. So, check the proper license of the library without fail.

6) Well-Written

Good authors always document well. Check the code of the library and analyze how well structured it is. Check whether it has a well-structured README file or not. The integration will be easy and flawless when the library you use is well-written. This will also reduce the chances of bugs and crash.

7) Specific Needs

If the library you pick does not fulfill all the requirements of your app development project, you will need to tweak it. You better know that tweaking the library would take as much time as it will be needed to code it all by yourself. Also, if you pick a library that has too many features that are definitely not needed for the app is a bad fit for the app. Get your needs sorted very precisely and keep searching until you find the perfect fit. If you can’t find, write your own.