I have seen someone disable animator when inserting, as

recyclerView.setItemAnimator(null);
notifyItemRangeInserted(int positionStart, int itemCount);
recyclerView.setItemAnimator(new DefaultItemAnimator());

https://developer.android.com/reference/android/support/v7/widget/DefaultItemAnimator

In my opinion, RecyclerView can set customized ItemAnimator. I will prefer to inherit SimpleItemAnimator and then disable removing animation by overriding

boolean animateRemove (RecyclerView.ViewHolder holder)