What is AndroidX?

AndroidX - Android Extension Library

From AndroidX documentation

We are rolling out a new package structure to make it clearer which packages are bundled with the Android operating system, and which are packaged with your app's APK. Going forward, the android.* package hierarchy will be reserved for Android packages that ship with the operating system. Other packages will be issued in the new androidx.* package hierarchy as part of the AndroidX library.

Need of AndroidX

AndroidX is a redesigned library to make package names more clear. So from now on android hierarchy will be for only android default classes, which comes with android operating system and other library/dependencies will be part of androidx (makes more sense). So from now on all the new development will be updated in androidx.

com.android.support.** : androidx.
com.android.support:appcompat-v7 : androidx.appcompat:appcompat com.android.support:recyclerview-v7 : androidx.recyclerview:recyclerview com.android.support:design : com.google.android.material:material

Complete Artifact mappings for AndroidX packages

AndroidX uses Semantic-version

Previously, support library used the SDK version but AndroidX uses the Semantic-version. It’s going to re-version from 28.0.0 → 1.0.0.

How to migrate current project

In Android Studio 3.2 (September 2018), there is a direct option to migrate existing project to AndroidX. This refactor all packages automatically.

Before you migrate, it is strongly recommended to backup your project.

Existing project

Android Studio > Refactor Menu > Migrate to AndroidX...
It will analyze and will open Refractor window in bottom. Accept changes to be done.

New project

Put these flags in your gradle.properties

android.enableJetifier=true
android.useAndroidX=true

Check @Library mappings for equal AndroidX package.

Check @Official page of Migrate to AndroidX

What is Jetifier?

Bugs of migrating

If you build app, and find some errors after migrating, then you need to fix those minor errors. You will not get stuck there, because that can be easily fixed.
3rd party libraries are not converted to AndroidX in directory, but they get converted at run time by Jetifier, so don't worry about compile time errors, your app will run perfectly.

Support 28.0.0 is last release?

From Android Support Revision 28.0.0

This will be the last feature release under the android.support packaging, and developers are encouraged to migrate to AndroidX 1.0.0

So go with AndroidX, because Android will update only androidx package from now.

androidx is new package structure to make it clearer which packages are bundled with the Android operating system, and which are packaged with your app's APK. Going forward, the android.* package hierarchy will be reserved for Android packages that ship with the operating system; other packages will be issued in the new androidx.* package hierarchy.

The re-designed package structure is to encourage smaller and more focused libraries. You find details regarding the artifact mappings here.

There are support libraries (containing component and packages for backward compatibility) named "v7" when the minimal SDK level supported is 14, the new naming makes it clear to understand the division between APIs bundled with platform and the libraries for app developers which are used on different versions of Android. You can refer to official announcement for more details.

AndroidX is the open-source project that the Android team uses to develop, test, package, version and release libraries within Jetpack.

AndroidX is a major improvement to the original Android Support Library. Like the Support Library, AndroidX ships separately from the Android OS and provides backward-compatibility across Android releases. AndroidX fully replaces the Support Library by providing feature parity and new libraries.

AndroidX includes the following features:

All packages in AndroidX live in a consistent namespace starting with the string androidx. The Support Library packages have been mapped into the corresponding androidx.* packages. For a full mapping of all the old classes and build artifacts to the new ones, see the Package Refactoring page.
Unlike the Support Library, AndroidX packages are separately maintained and updated. The androidx packages use strict Semantic Versioning starting with version 1.0.0. You can update AndroidX libraries in your project independently.
All new Support Library development will occur in the AndroidX library. This includes maintenance of the original Support Library artifacts and introduction of new Jetpack components.

Using AndroidX

See Migrating to AndroidX to learn how to migrate an existing project.

If you want to use AndroidX in a new project, you need to set the compile SDK to Android 9.0 (API level 28) or higher and set both of the following Android Gradle plugin flags to true in your gradle.properties file.

android.useAndroidX: When set to true, the Android plugin uses the appropriate AndroidX library instead of a Support Library. The flag is false by default if it is not specified.
android.enableJetifier: When set to true, the Android plugin automatically migrates existing third-party libraries to use AndroidX by rewriting their binaries. The flag is false by default if it is not specified.

For Artifact mappings see this

This article Android Jetpack: What do the recent announcements mean for Android’s Support Library? explains it well

Today, many consider the Support Library an essential part of Android app development, to the point where it’s used by 99 percent of apps in the Google Play store. However, as the Support Library has grown, inconsistencies have crept in surrounding the library’s naming convention.

Initially, the name of each package indicated the minimum API level supported by that package, for example, support-v4. However, version 26.0.0 of the Support Library increased the minimum API to 14, so today many of the package names have nothing to do with the minimum supported API level. When support-v4 and the support-v7 packages both have a minimum API of 14, it’s easy to see why people get confused!

To clear up this confusion, Google is currently refactoring the Support Library into a new Android extension library (AndroidX) package structure. AndroidX will feature simplified package names, as well as Maven groupIds and artifactIds that better reflect each package’s content and its supported API levels.

With the current naming convention, it also isn’t clear which packages are bundled with the Android operating system, and which are packaged with your application’s APK (Android Package Kit). To clear up this confusion, all the unbundled libraries will be moved to AndroidX’s androidx.* namespace, while the android.* package hierarchy will be reserved for packages that ship with the Android operating system.