Kotlin Help

IDEs for Kotlin development

JetBrains provides the official Kotlin plugin for IntelliJ IDEA, JetBrains Fleet, and Android Studio.

Other IDEs and code editors, such as Eclipse, Visual Studio Code, and Atom, have Kotlin community-supported plugins.

IntelliJ IDEA

IntelliJ IDEA is an IDE for JVM languages designed to maximize developer productivity. It does the routine and repetitive tasks for you by providing clever code completion, static code analysis, and refactorings, and lets you focus on the bright side of software development, making it not only productive but also an enjoyable experience.

Kotlin plugin is bundled with each IntelliJ IDEA release.

Read more about IntelliJ IDEA in the official documentation.

Fleet

JetBrains Fleet is a polyglot IDE and code editor that provides advanced support for Kotlin and a streamlined experience for Kotlin developers. You can use Fleet as a code editor to quickly make targeted edits, or turn on Smart Mode and transform it into a full-fledged IDE with code intelligence features.

Kotlin plugin is bundled with each Fleet release.

Fleet also supports Kotlin Multiplatform projects targeting the Android, iOS, and desktop platforms, including testing and debugging your code. Fleet's Smart Mode selects the appropriate code-processing engine as well as enables navigation between Kotlin Multiplatform code and code written in languages interoperable with Kotlin.

See the Use Fleet for Multiplatform development tutorial to get started.

Android Studio

Android Studio is the official IDE for Android app development, based on IntelliJ IDEA. On top of IntelliJ's powerful code editor and developer tools, Android Studio offers even more features that enhance your productivity when building Android apps.

Kotlin plugin is bundled with each Android Studio release.

Read more about Android Studio in the official documentation.

Eclipse

Eclipse is an IDE that is used to develop applications in different programming languages, including Kotlin. Eclipse also has the Kotlin plugin: originally developed by JetBrains, now the Kotlin plugin is supported by the Kotlin community contributors.

You can install the Kotlin plugin manually from the Eclipse Marketplace.

The Kotlin team manages the development and contribution process to the Kotlin plugin for Eclipse. If you want to contribute to the plugin, send a pull request to the Kotlin for Eclipse repository on GitHub.

Compatibility with the Kotlin language versions

For IntelliJ IDEA, Fleet, and Android Studio, the Kotlin plugin is bundled with each IDE release. When the new Kotlin version is released, these IDEs will suggest updating Kotlin to the latest version automatically. See the latest supported language version for each IDE in Kotlin releases.

Other IDEs support

JetBrains doesn't provide Kotlin plugins for other IDEs. However, some of the other IDEs and source editors, such as Eclipse, Visual Studio Code, and Atom, have their own Kotlin plugins supported by the Kotlin community.

You can use any text editor to write the Kotlin code, but without IDE-related features: code formatting, debugging tools, and so on. To use Kotlin in text editors, you can download the latest Kotlin command-line compiler (kotlin-compiler-1.9.23.zip) from Kotlin GitHub Releases and install it manually. Also, you could use package managers, such as Homebrew, SDKMAN!, and Snap package.

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Last modified: 20 November 2023