JetBrains has released a stable version of its Kotlin Multiplatform technology for sharing code among iOS, Android, desktop, web, and other platforms, the company said on November 1.
Leveraging the Kotlin language, Kotlin Multiplatform is designed to simplify development of cross-platform projects. In beta since 2022, Kotlin Multiplatform lets developers build applications and reuse code across various platforms while retaining the benefits of native programming, JetBrains said. The production version offers a stabilized API, simplified project configuration, and improved interoperability with Objective-C and Swift. Faster build times and other performance improvements also are offered.
With Kotlin Multiplatform, developers can share only part of an application's logic and write native code if they want to interact with platform-specific APIs or build native Uis. Planned updates would enhance the experience of iOS developers by offering direct Kotlin-to-Swift interoperability and SwiftPM support. JetBrains also is developing Kotlin/Wasm, supporting the WebAssembly binary instruction format, for web development with Kotlin Multiplatform.
Developers can combine Kotlin Multiplatform with JetBrains’ Compose Multiplatform, a declarative framework for sharing UIs across multiple platforms. Combining the two frameworks makes it possible to share 100% of a codebase, all in Kotlin. Kotlin Multiplatform already has been used by development teams at companies such as Netflix, VMware, and McDonald’s, JetBrains said.