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  5. Kotlin vs Swift

Kotlin vs Swift

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

Swift
Swift
Stacks21.9K
Followers13.6K
Votes1.3K
Kotlin
Kotlin
Stacks17.7K
Followers11.9K
Votes650
GitHub Stars51.5K
Forks6.1K

Kotlin vs Swift: What are the differences?

# Introduction
In this Markdown code, we will discuss the key differences between Kotlin and Swift.

1. **Syntax**: Kotlin has a more concise syntax compared to Swift, making it easier to read and write code. Swift, on the other hand, has a stricter syntax with more emphasis on typing and safety.
2. **Null Safety**: Kotlin has built-in null safety features, reducing the chances of encountering null pointer exceptions. In Swift, optional chaining and forced unwrapping are used to handle nil values.
3. **Platform Support**: Kotlin is a cross-platform language that can be used for developing Android, server-side, and web applications. Swift, however, is mainly used for iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS development.
4. **Type Inference**: Kotlin provides strong type inference, allowing developers to write more expressive code without explicitly declaring variable types. In Swift, type inference is also used but developers have to explicitly declare certain types for better clarity.
5. **Interoperability**: Kotlin has seamless interop with Java, enabling developers to incorporate existing Java code in their Kotlin projects. Swift, on the other hand, has limited interoperability with Objective-C, which can sometimes pose challenges in iOS development.
6. **Community and Ecosystem**: Swift has a larger community and ecosystem compared to Kotlin, offering a wider range of libraries, frameworks, and resources for developers. Kotlin, although growing rapidly, may have limited resources for certain niche functionalities.

In Summary, the key differences between Kotlin and Swift lie in their syntax, null safety features, platform support, type inference, interoperability, and community ecosystems.

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Advice on Swift, Kotlin

Nick
Nick

Building cool things on the internet 🛠️ at Stream

Sep 5, 2019

Review

I work at Stream and I'm immensely proud of what our team is working on here at the company. Most recently, we announced our Android SDK accompanied by an extensive tutorial for Java and Kotlin. The tutorial covers just about everything you need to know when it comes to using our Android SDK for Stream Chat. The Android SDK touches many features offered by Stream Chat – more specifically, typing status, read state, file uploads, threads, reactions, editing messages, and commands. Head over to https://getstream.io/tutorials/android-chat/ and give it a whirl!

176k views176k
Comments
vargamatyas
vargamatyas

Nov 22, 2020

Needs adviceonPythonPythonSwiftSwiftReact NativeReact Native

Hey guys, I learned the basics (OOP, data structures & some algorithms) with Python, but now I want to learn iOS development. I am considering to learn Swift, but I am afraid how the native mobile development will die out because of the cross-platform frameworks and reviews. My idea is to learn web development first and then learn React Native, and after all of that, finally Swift. What do you think about this roadmap? Should I just learn Swift first due to the pros of the native apps?

126k views126k
Comments
Zuriel
Zuriel

Jun 7, 2020

Needs advice

Can anyone help me decide what's best for app development or even android Oreo development? I'm in a state dilemma at the moment. I want to do Android programming, not necessarily web development. I have heard a lot of people recommend one of these, and it seems that both the tools can do the job. Which language would you choose?

291k views291k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

Swift
Swift
Kotlin
Kotlin

Writing code is interactive and fun, the syntax is concise yet expressive, and apps run lightning-fast. Swift is ready for your next iOS and OS X project — or for addition into your current app — because Swift code works side-by-side with Objective-C.

Kotlin is a statically typed programming language for the JVM, Android and the browser, 100% interoperable with Java

Statistics
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Stars
51.5K
GitHub Forks
-
GitHub Forks
6.1K
Stacks
21.9K
Stacks
17.7K
Followers
13.6K
Followers
11.9K
Votes
1.3K
Votes
650
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 259
    Ios
  • 180
    Elegant
  • 126
    Not Objective-C
  • 107
    Backed by apple
  • 93
    Type inference
Cons
  • 6
    Must own a mac
  • 2
    Memory leaks are not uncommon
  • 1
    Complicated process for exporting modules
  • 1
    Very irritatingly picky about things that’s
  • 1
    Its classes compile to roughly 300 lines of assembly
Pros
  • 73
    Interoperable with Java
  • 55
    Functional Programming support
  • 51
    Null Safety
  • 46
    Official Android support
  • 44
    Backed by JetBrains
Cons
  • 7
    Java interop makes users write Java in Kotlin
  • 4
    Frequent use of {} keys
  • 2
    Nonullpointer Exception
  • 2
    Hard to make teams adopt the Kotlin style
  • 1
    Friendly community
Integrations
Cocoa Touch (iOS)
Cocoa Touch (iOS)
No integrations available

What are some alternatives to Swift, Kotlin?

JavaScript

JavaScript

JavaScript is most known as the scripting language for Web pages, but used in many non-browser environments as well such as node.js or Apache CouchDB. It is a prototype-based, multi-paradigm scripting language that is dynamic,and supports object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles.

Python

Python

Python is a general purpose programming language created by Guido Van Rossum. Python is most praised for its elegant syntax and readable code, if you are just beginning your programming career python suits you best.

PHP

PHP

Fast, flexible and pragmatic, PHP powers everything from your blog to the most popular websites in the world.

Ruby

Ruby

Ruby is a language of careful balance. Its creator, Yukihiro “Matz” Matsumoto, blended parts of his favorite languages (Perl, Smalltalk, Eiffel, Ada, and Lisp) to form a new language that balanced functional programming with imperative programming.

Java

Java

Java is a programming language and computing platform first released by Sun Microsystems in 1995. There are lots of applications and websites that will not work unless you have Java installed, and more are created every day. Java is fast, secure, and reliable. From laptops to datacenters, game consoles to scientific supercomputers, cell phones to the Internet, Java is everywhere!

Golang

Golang

Go is expressive, concise, clean, and efficient. Its concurrency mechanisms make it easy to write programs that get the most out of multicore and networked machines, while its novel type system enables flexible and modular program construction. Go compiles quickly to machine code yet has the convenience of garbage collection and the power of run-time reflection. It's a fast, statically typed, compiled language that feels like a dynamically typed, interpreted language.

HTML5

HTML5

HTML5 is a core technology markup language of the Internet used for structuring and presenting content for the World Wide Web. As of October 2014 this is the final and complete fifth revision of the HTML standard of the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C). The previous version, HTML 4, was standardised in 1997.

C#

C#

C# (pronounced "See Sharp") is a simple, modern, object-oriented, and type-safe programming language. C# has its roots in the C family of languages and will be immediately familiar to C, C++, Java, and JavaScript programmers.

Scala

Scala

Scala is an acronym for “Scalable Language”. This means that Scala grows with you. You can play with it by typing one-line expressions and observing the results. But you can also rely on it for large mission critical systems, as many companies, including Twitter, LinkedIn, or Intel do. To some, Scala feels like a scripting language. Its syntax is concise and low ceremony; its types get out of the way because the compiler can infer them.

Elixir

Elixir

Elixir leverages the Erlang VM, known for running low-latency, distributed and fault-tolerant systems, while also being successfully used in web development and the embedded software domain.

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