smaller apk size when built with VS Code

Question

Greeting. I am new to flutter, and developing using VS Code on Windows 10. Both flutter and VS code are of latest versions.

Lately, I noticed something rather strange. When I built the Android apk using the flutter CLI (flutter build apk --debug / --release), the output apk seems to always be about 10MB+ larger compared to those built within VS Code (through the debug & release configurations in launch.json).

Here's the sample apk size built in a basic flutter project created by 'flutter create':

Builds by VS Code:
-rw-r--r-- 1 teeka 197609 57557589 Aug 8 14:45 ./build/app/outputs/flutter-apk/app-debug.apk
-rw-r--r-- 1 teeka 197609 6586727 Aug 8 14:43 ./build/app/outputs/flutter-apk/app-release.apk

Builds by 'flutter build apk':
-rw-r--r-- 1 teeka 197609 70762755 Aug 8 14:45 ./build/app/outputs/flutter-apk/app-debug.apk
-rw-r--r-- 1 teeka 197609 16802483 Aug 8 14:47 ./build/app/outputs/flutter-apk/app-release.apk

Appreciate if anyone can help offer some clarification on the discrepancy. Thanks in advance.

Naturally, we all like a smaller APK size, but I wondering if there's any string attached.

Thanks.

Answer 1

Here's the content of launch.json:

{
"version": "0.2.0",
"configurations": [
    {
        "name": "flutter_new_project",
        "request": "launch",
        "type": "dart"
    },
    {
        "name": "flutter_new_project (debug mode)",
        "request": "launch",
        "type": "dart",
        "flutterMode": "debug"
    },
    {
        "name": "flutter_new_project (release mode)",
        "request": "launch",
        "type": "dart",
        "flutterMode": "release"
    }
]

}