Difference between observeAsState and collectAsState and when to use each in Android Jetpack Compose?

Question

I am learning Jetpack Compose but facing some issues in understanding states. Can someone explain these two? observeAsState and collectAsState. Thank you.

Answer 1

1. observeAsState is an extension on LiveData .
   Starts observing this LiveData and represents its values via State .
   Uses Lifecyle internally for safely observing the data.

2. collectAsState is an extension on StateFlow .
   Collects values from this StateFlow and represents its latest value via State.
   You need to handle the collection as per appropriate Lifecyle .

Source: Compose#LiveData & Compose#Flow .

Answer 2

An addition of Darshan´s answer is that in version 2.6.0-alpha.1 we have a new extension function that takes care of lifecylce when collecting StateFlow.

Link of release notes: https://developer.android.com/jetpack/androidx/releases/lifecycle?hl=es-419#2.6.0-alpha01

Example of use. https://medium.com/tech-takeaways/how-to-safely-collect-flows-lifecycle-aware-in-jetpack-compose-a-new-approach-ed20ead25be9