Which one should I pick for a new project?

Neither repo is recommended for new projects.

chrisbanes/android-pulltorefresh: The RepoPilot verdict is WAIT — Stale — last commit 9y ago. The README explicitly states: "PLEASE NOTE, THIS PROJECT IS NO LONGER BEING MAINTAINED". This library is deprecated and should not be used in new projects.

jakewharton/butterknife: While this repository is actively maintained (unlike android-pulltorefresh), the Android ecosystem has moved toward modern dependency injection and view binding approaches:

• AndroidX and Jetpack now provide view binding natively via androidx.databinding and androidx.viewbinding
• Kotlin is the standard, and Kotlin Synthetics (which Butterknife predated) were deprecated in favor of View Binding
• Compose has largely replaced traditional view-based UI development

That said, if you're working on a legacy Java/Android codebase that already uses Butterknife, continuing with it is reasonable. Butterknife 10.x supports AndroidX [CHANGELOG.md:L36-L75] and remains functional.

For new projects, use:

• Android's built-in View Binding (if using traditional Views)
• Jetpack Compose (for modern UI development)
• Hilt (for dependency injection, replacing manual Butterknife binding)

FOLLOW_UPS:

• What's the current Android API level you're targeting?
• Are you using Kotlin or Java for your project?
• Is this a new project or maintaining legacy code?