How to play GIF in android

add this to your dependencies (build.gradle)

 allprojects {
    repositories {
        mavenCentral()
    }
}
dependencies {
    implementation 'pl.droidsonroids.gif:android-gif-drawable:1.2.15'
}

and use this in xml to show your gif

 <pl.droidsonroids.gif.GifTextView
                    android:id="@+id/gifTextView2"
                    android:layout_width="230dp"
                    android:layout_height="200dp"
                    android:layout_weight="1"
                    android:src="@drawable/dev_option_gif"
                    />

More info at: https://github.com/koral--/android-gif-drawable

2017 UPDATED ANSWER

To play GIF in android use Glide library to load any image or GIF.

Glide.with(context)
.load(YOUR_GIF)
.into(YOUR_IMAGE_VIEW);

Use Glide to load normal images, images from server or even to load GIF as well. Also have a look at Picasso android image loading library which is similar to Glide but as of now(16 Apr 2017) Picasso doesn't support GIF loading in android yet.

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OLD ANSWER

For all Those who want to play GIF in your app please find the code below PlayGifView.java

 import android.annotation.SuppressLint;
 import android.content.Context;
 import android.graphics.Canvas;
 import android.graphics.Movie;
 import android.os.Build;
 import android.util.AttributeSet;
 import android.view.View;

 public class PlayGifView extends View{

     private static final int DEFAULT_MOVIEW_DURATION = 1000;

     private int mMovieResourceId;
     private Movie mMovie;

     private long mMovieStart = 0;
     private int mCurrentAnimationTime = 0;

     @SuppressLint("NewApi")
     public PlayGifView(Context context, AttributeSet attrs) {
         super(context, attrs);

        /**
         * Starting from HONEYCOMB have to turn off HardWare acceleration to draw
         * Movie on Canvas.
         */
        if (Build.VERSION.SDK_INT >= Build.VERSION_CODES.HONEYCOMB) {
            setLayerType(View.LAYER_TYPE_SOFTWARE, null);
        }
    }

     public void setImageResource(int mvId){
         this.mMovieResourceId = mvId;
    mMovie = Movie.decodeStream(getResources().openRawResource(mMovieResourceId));
    requestLayout();
}

@Override
protected void onMeasure(int widthMeasureSpec, int heightMeasureSpec) {
    if(mMovie != null){
        setMeasuredDimension(mMovie.width(), mMovie.height());
    }else{
        setMeasuredDimension(getSuggestedMinimumWidth(), getSuggestedMinimumHeight());
    }
}

@Override
protected void onDraw(Canvas canvas) {
    if (mMovie != null){
        updateAnimtionTime();
        drawGif(canvas);
        invalidate();
    }else{
        drawGif(canvas);
    }
}

private void updateAnimtionTime() {
    long now = android.os.SystemClock.uptimeMillis();

    if (mMovieStart == 0) {
        mMovieStart = now;
    }
    int dur = mMovie.duration();
    if (dur == 0) {
        dur = DEFAULT_MOVIEW_DURATION;
    }
    mCurrentAnimationTime = (int) ((now - mMovieStart) % dur);
}

private void drawGif(Canvas canvas) {
    mMovie.setTime(mCurrentAnimationTime);
    mMovie.draw(canvas, 0, 0);
    canvas.restore();
}

}

In your activity class use the following code to play GIF

PlayGifView pGif = (PlayGifView) findViewById(R.id.viewGif);
pGif.setImageResource(<Your GIF file name Eg: R.drawable.infinity_gif>);

XML layout

<yourPacckageName.PlayGifView
            android:id="@+id/viewGif"
            android:layout_width="wrap_content"
            android:layout_height="wrap_content"
            android:layout_gravity="center" />

Use Glide to load any gif from your project's raw folder or external URL into ImageView, ImageButtons or similar [Glide targets][2]

Glide.with(getActivity()).load(R.raw.alarm).asGif().into(btnAlert);

If you can use a WebView, GIFs will play directly over it. But I am not sure, in your case whether you want to put it in a Webview or not.