Java vs. Kotlin: Which One Is More Suitable for Android App Development

Are you following the Android App Development Market? If yes, you will know that Kotlin has been declared as the primary language at the I/O 2019. Apart from Java, the community for Kotlin mobile app development is growing continuously.

Since Google made Kotlin the official programming language; developers are in a fix. They don’t know whether to opt for Kotlin or Java for Android app development projects.

In this article, you will get a detailed comparison between Java vs. Kotlin. The comparison can tell which language is suitable for your Android app development project.

Java vs. Kotlin: Which One Is More Suitable for Android App Development.

Where Does Kotlin Stand in 2019?

Between Java Vs Kotlin, it is easy to see Kotlin has made immense growth. The growth is remarkable within the Android app development community.

The basic aim of Kotlin is to offer accessibility to all platforms. As a result, multi-platform programming is the only hypothesis for an innovative outlook. It allows easy sharing of codes across many platforms.

New versions of Kotlin 1.3 come with improvements. Kotlin/Native is heading towards multi-platform convenience. Therefore, Android developers can use Kotlin on all platforms. It assists scalability by offering support like code reuse. It saves time and effort among several other advantages.

Kotlin makes use of compiler technology LLMV to gather Kotlin sources for stand-along binaries for varied operating systems and CPU architectures.

Take a close look at the trends in Android app development. One can see that enterprise leaders have either drifted to Kotlin or are in the process of doing so. Some prominent apps, such as Twitter, Airbnb, Evernote, Pinterest, Netflix, etc are now making its shift to Kotlin for Android apps. Likewise, with the adaption of cross-platform Kotlin development, leading players of the industry are trying to reap the benefits.

Kotlin and Its Benefits

Developers anticipate that creating an Android app with Kotlin can offer a lot of advantages. They are:

• Helps to build a clean application program interface
• Easily learned
• It’s open-source. So it won’t cost anything to adopt.
• For writing Kotlin, existing Java Frameworks & Libraries is used
• Compilation available for JavaScript or JV bytecode
• Null-safety is amazing for Kotlin
• Easily approachable
• A lot of traction in Android development
• Review of codes is not an issue with Kotlin

Once you have gone through the benefits of Kotlin, you need to take a close look at the benefits of using Java.

Java and Its Benefits

It’s platform-independent. It works well with both cross-platform and native apps. Basically, it’s an extensive open-source system. So Java offers a wide range of benefits. They are:

• In comparison between Java vs Kotlin, apps built with Java are very light. Thus, offer an improved app experience.
• It’s flexible. It can run on a browser window or on any virtual machine
• Android SDK comes with a lot of standard libraries for Java
• Being an open-source eco-system, due to Google’s adaptation of JVM for Android
• Java apps are compact. Rather, it can be optimized
• Works well for native and cross-platform apps
• Offers network-centric programming

Cons of Java and Kotlin

Java

• More code needs to be written as Java is a type-heavy language. Therefore, it increases the chance of errors and bugs.
• Due to fundamental limitations, it faces some problems with the Android application program interface design.
• It needs more memory than other languages.

Kotlin

• It comes with a steep learning curve. It requires some kind of learning.
• Learning resources are limited. So the community is still looking for solutions.
• It offers a slower compilation speed.

Does This Bring An End to Java Language?

The answer to choose between Java vs Kotlin comes with mixed opinions from mobile app developers. Java, a well-known programming language comes with a wide range of open-source tools and libraries. But, no language is without fault. Java can make the job of developers tedious. As a result, it’s expected that Kotlin would be able to offer solutions to programming. Moreover, it can improve the Java ecosystem also.

Wrapping Up

In short, for Android app development, the debate between Java vs. Kotlin is going to continue. While Java language continues to be popular with coders, Kotlin is shaping up to be a good alternative. However, Kotlin continues to make a lot of improvements. As such, the fight between these two is sure to go on for a while.