Does Google/firebase Android Sdks Use Grpc?

Recently I've been working on integrating a GRPC API in a size sensitive android app. The API only had a couple of Unary calls. I noticed that the resulting APK had io.grpc (613KB)

Solution 1:

The protobuf protocol is used by some Firebase SDKs as part of their internal communications. The first one that comes to mind is Firebase Analytics, but there are others too.

The Cloud Firestore SDK in Firebase uses grpc as part of its transport protocol. If you're not using Cloud Firestore then the grpc library will not be included as far as I know.

To ensure that unused methods are removed, be sure to use ProGuard as part of your release build.