During 2011, work on the detailed design commenced; company officials decided to base the new transport aircraft on the in-production An-148 and An-158 family.

[7] In comparison to the preceding An-12, the new transport aircraft features two engines in place of four, has reduced maintenance requirements, and a smaller flight crew, all of which will lower ongoing costs to its operators.

[7] During the early 2010s, there were reports that future production-standard An-178s would feature an elongated wingspan while retaining the organic wing panels of the An-158.

[8][9] On 29 July 2014, the main fuselage of the first prototype had been completed and moved to the final assembly hall to be mated with the other airframe components.

[7][13] During the event, Antonov announced that it had secured multiple orders for the first batch of production aircraft, which it claimed was already underway at its primary facility outside Kyiv.

In June 2019, the Ministry of Internal Affairs of Ukraine placed an order for 13 An-178s; at the time, these were to be reportedly delivered within three years.

[18] During January 2021, it was announced that Antonov was embarking on the production of an initial three An-178s for the Ukrainian Air Force following the signing of a memorandum of cooperation.

It was derived from the 99-seat An-158 regional airliner and was fitted with the commonized F1 fuselage nose section with the identical flight deck, wing panels, empennage and most of the onboard systems.

[8] The fuselage however was newly created with an enlarged diameter that had grown from 3.35 m to 3.9 m, which has resulted in an enlarged cargo hold - the cargo cabin cross section increased to 2.75 m by 2.75 m.[8] Aside from the wing structure, outer panels (including winglets), front fuselage nose, cockpit and nose landing gear which come from the An-158, there is an extra pair of tandem main-wheels on each side.

The powerplant consists of two Progress D-436-148FM turbofan engines, mounted on pylons under the wings, and an auxiliary power unit.