Accelerating Android Builds on AWS: From 3 Hours to Under 5 Minutes with SourceFS

This article demonstrates how SourceFS from Source.dev dramatically accelerates Android Open Source Project (AOSP) builds on AWS, reducing checkout-and-build time from approximately 3 hours to under 5 minutes.

• AOSP 16 codebase exceeds 140 million lines of code, requiring 200+ GB downloads and extensive compute resources
• SourceFS uses virtual file materialization to enable on-demand file access instead of full downloads
• Organization-wide build caching replays 99.9% of build steps, eliminating redundant work across teams
• SourceFS enables EC2 Spot Instances for AOSP builds, reducing costs by up to 98.4%
• In-memory filesystems (tmpfs) become viable with SourceFS, further accelerating builds
• Benchmark results show 18x faster builds and 39x cost reduction on m8a.8xlarge instances
• SourceFS requires near-zero migration overhead and works with existing Git, Repo, and build toolchains
• Two deployment models available: SaaS (managed) and BYOC (Bring Your Own Cloud) for enterprise security
• Automotive OEMs, smartphone manufacturers, and IoT companies benefit from improved developer productivity and reduced infrastructure costs

SourceFS eliminates traditional AOSP build bottlenecks through intelligent caching and virtual filesystems, making large-scale Android development significantly faster and more cost-effective on AWS infrastructure.