Why Choose Landscapist?¶

1. Minimal Footprint for SDKs and Libraries¶

Landscapist Core is exceptionally lightweight compared to other image loading libraries, making it the ideal choice for SDK and library developers who need to minimize their dependency footprint. When building SDKs or libraries that require image loading capabilities, the size of your dependencies directly impacts your users' APK size.

AAR Size Comparison (Android Release Build):

Library	AAR Size	vs Landscapist Core	Impact on APK
landscapist-core	~312 KB	Baseline (Smallest)	Minimal
Coil3	~460 KB	+47% larger	Moderate
Glide	~689 KB	+121% larger	Significant
Fresco	~1 MB	+228% larger	High

Why this matters for SDKs¶

User Impact: Every KB in your SDK adds to your users' APK size. Landscapist Core keeps your SDK lean.
Adoption Rate: Developers are more likely to adopt lightweight SDKs that don't bloat their apps.
Multiple SDK Scenario: When apps use multiple SDKs, each using lightweight dependencies prevents exponential growth.
Enterprise Requirements: Many enterprises have strict APK size budgets. Landscapist Core helps you stay within limits.

Real-world example: If your SDK uses Landscapist Core instead of Glide, you save ~377 KB per user. For 1 million users, that's 377 GB of bandwidth and storage savings across all devices.

2. Cross-Platform from the Start¶

Write your image loading code once and deploy it everywhere. LandscapistImage works identically across all Compose Multiplatform targets without platform-specific workarounds or conditional code. Share your image loading logic, caching configuration, and UI components across your entire application.

3. Full Control Over the Pipeline¶

Unlike wrapper libraries that hide implementation details, LandscapistImage exposes the entire image loading pipeline. Configure network timeouts, cache policies, image transformations, and loading priorities at both the global and per-request levels. You're not locked into preset behaviors—customize everything to match your app's specific needs.

4. Performance Optimized¶

Built with performance in mind from day one. LandscapistImage automatically downsamples images based on display size, uses efficient memory and disk caching strategies, and supports progressive loading for large images. Memory usage is optimized through weak reference pooling and automatic cache trimming under memory pressure.

See the Performance Comparison for detailed benchmark results.

5. Plugin Ecosystem¶

Leverage the full Landscapist plugin ecosystem including shimmer placeholders, crossfade animations, blur transformations, palette extraction, and zoomable images. All plugins work seamlessly with LandscapistImage and can be combined in any way you need.