 <p>It's not necessary or even mandatory. But is it smart? Yes it is. Android Studio with Gradle and Maven are soooo powerful, that you are losing so much time using Eclipse. </p> <p>Of course, you will have to pass all these painful steps, like we all did. What is Gradle? What is Maven? How do I import library? Where is my code? Why my Manifest does not work? And so on...</p> <p>so I strongly advise you find a week of your time and learn new IDE by fixing all those things that will arise when you do conversion. </p> <p>But in the end, you can still use Eclipse or IntelliJ IDEA the old way and leave learning to some other time. </p>