Which Android Architecture Is Best: MVC vs MVP vs MVVM

With the changing lifestyle trends, the demand for new app developments has grown outrageously. Every business venture is getting into the digital world with its offerings. All are after acing the game of online user experience. For this, one needs to build a scalable, robust, and easily accessible application. And, a mobile application’s maintainability and performance depend majorly on its architecture. Without its sustainability, one cannot provide the best services online. Herein, we are going to discuss popular Android architecture designs.

Model View Controller (MVC), Model View Presenter (MVP), and Model View View Model (MVVM) are the most popular architectures which focus on developing secured and high-performing Android apps. So, let’s dive into the blog to know the major difference between all three architectures and make a decision to choose one of them for your mobile app development.

But, first, let’s start from scratch!

What is Mobile App Architecture?

To abide a successful development, a developer approaches an architecture design. It refers to a set of rules, techniques, processes, and patterns to develop a modern application. Such architectures allow a developer to meet an individual’s business requirements & industry standards.

The mobile app architecture consists of all the elements that make up the app, including the data collected, the way that data is moved, how the app looks, the platform it runs on, and the tech stack it employs.

Architecture Patterns:

MVC (Model — View — Controller), MVP (Model — View — Presenter), and MVVM (Model — View — ViewModel) is the popular architectures patterns in software development. The basic idea of using these architectures patterns is to separate the business logic and UI part. By doing this, your code becomes to be more readable and testable. Let’s understand these patterns and how we can use that in the actual project.

The Model—View—Controller(MVC) Pattern

MVC(Model View Controller)

As the name suggests, MVC contains 3 components. Model, View, and Controller.

MVC separates the application logic.

1. Model:

The model represents the data classes that hold data from the controller or view. It also handles different data manipulation methods that are required for business logic.

2. View

The view is the UI representation classes that face the users and handle interactions with the XML, Activity, and Fragments. It also makes requests to the controller class upon the different user interactions.

3. Controller

The controller is responsible for handling the incoming request from the view class, performing operations on the model classes, and passing them back to the view class for the user. Mostly controller contains the API call logic and other calculations.

The view handles all the presentation, and the controller tells the model and view what to perform. MVC codes are easy to maintain and can be used for small-scale applications. MVC can be more complex and hard to understand in terms of complexity and updates.

The Model—View—Presenter(MVP) Pattern

MVP(Model View Presenter)

As the name suggests, MVP contains a total of 3 components. Model, View, and Presenter. You can use the MVP architecture to overcome the limitations of MVC architecture. For example, in MVC, code becomes more tightly coupled, which reduces the code’s testability and makes it harder to refactor and change.

1. Model:

The model will continue to contain the data in simple classes, so nothing changes here.

2. View

The view is the same component we use in the MVC architecture, representing all UI-related parts like Activity, Fragment, etc.

3. Presenter

The presenter holds all the business logic related to the particular screen or activity. It emits the event or callback to the View class based on the changes in the data of different model classes.

Unlike MVC, MVP uses interfaces to communicate between the presenter and view class which helps to improve the code readability. Also, improve the modularity and testability of the code. Generally, we can use the MVP in a large-scale project where continuous new features are introduced and clean code needs to be maintained.

The Model — View — ViewModel (MVVM) Pattern

MVVM (Model View ViewModel)

As the name suggests, MVP contains a total of 3 components. Model, View, and ViewModel. Like many other architectures patterns, MVVM helps organize code and break programs into modules to make code development, updating, and reuse simpler and faster. MVVM uses the reactive programming model for lesser code.

1. Model:

The Model contains the logic for the program, which the ViewModel retrieves upon receiving input from the user through View.

2. View

It represents the application’s user interface without any application logic. It keeps track of the ViewModel.

3. ViewModel

The Model and the View are connected. It is in charge of changing the data from the Model. The View receives data streams from it. The View is updated via hooks or callbacks and requests data from the Model.

As compared to the MVP, MVVM contains the observable as no presenter is available. Because of this, MVVM creates loosely coupled code which helps to do unit testing more easily. MVVM has less interface also as compared to MVP or MVC architecture. MVVM works as follows. The ViewModel sits below the UI layer. It exposes the data and command objects needed to View. You could think of this as a container object that the View goes to get its data and actions. It pulls data from the Model.

Difference Between MVC, MVP, and MVVM Architectures Pattern

Let’s have a look at the difference which will distinguish between the architectures. It will definitely help in dissolving some of the queries in your mind.

MVC	MVP	MVVM
Model View Controller	Model View Presenter	Model View View Model
The oldest architectural design	It is the second iteration of software development, an advanced architecture then MVC	It is an industry-recognized architecture for application
Input is directed to the Controller	Input is directed to View	Input is directed to Controller
The View does not have any knowledge of Controller	The view holds a reference to its Presenter and the Presenter is aware of its the View	The View Modell does not have any knowledge of its View
Difficult to make changes and modify the app code	Easy modifications/changes in the application code	It will be a little more difficult to debug the program if the data binding logic is very complicated.
It is for small-scale projects	It is for simple and complex projects	Not ideal for small-scale projects
Highly dependent on Android APIs	Low dependency on Android APIs	Low or no dependency on Android APIs

Conclusion:

MVP and MVM are more advanced and have better architecture patterns than MVC. Both architectures provide modular, single-purpose components and add more complexity to your app. MVC might function perfectly for a straightforward application with just one or two screens. MVVM has a more reactive programming approach and generates less code with data binding, which is more appealing to online users.  

If you’re choosing between MVP and MVVM, It is a choice of personal preference, but seeing them in action will help you understand the benefits and tradeoffs.