Kotlin Community Chooses Best Libraries of the Year: Voting Results

Kotlin Community Chooses Best Libraries of the Year

The annual vote among Kotlin developers has concluded — the community has selected the best libraries that have become true drivers of the ecosystem in 2024. Thousands of specialists from different countries, including Russia, took part in the survey, and the results turned out to be quite revealing. The leaders of the ranking are not only popular frameworks but also specialized tools that significantly simplify development.

Top 5 Libraries According to the Community

Based on the voting results, five main categories and their winners were determined. Here is the list of the most sought-after libraries:

• Ktor — an asynchronous web framework from JetBrains, taking first place in the "Best Web Tool" category. It allows you to create both server-side and client-side applications in pure Kotlin.
• Koin — a lightweight DI framework, recognized as the best in the "Dependency Management" category. Its key advantage is the absence of code generation and minimal configuration.
• Exposed — an ORM library for working with databases. This year it surpassed competitors in the "Data Handling" category thanks to its convenient DSL and coroutine support.
• Kotlinx.serialization — a standard library for data serialization. It took first place in the "Utilities" category due to its high performance and native integration with Kotlin.
• Kotest — a testing framework that the community recognized as the best in the "Testing and Quality" category. Its flexible test writing styles and powerful matchers were decisive factors.

Why These Libraries Are Important for the Ecosystem

Interestingly, all the winners are open-source projects actively supported by the community. Ktor, for example, is increasingly used for building microservices, while Koin helps developers avoid boilerplate code when implementing dependency injection. Exposed, in turn, is becoming an alternative to heavyweight ORMs like Hibernate.

Kotlinx.serialization deserves special attention — it solves the long-standing problem of compatibility with JSON and other formats while remaining part of the official SDK. And Kotest continues to gain popularity as an alternative to JUnit for those who want to write tests in a more functional style.

Impact on Development in 2025

Experts note that the community's choice reflects the overall trend toward lightness and performance. Developers are increasingly abandoning cumbersome solutions in favor of specialized libraries that do not require complex configuration. For example, Koin and Exposed are already being actively adopted in startups and medium-sized projects, while Ktor is becoming the standard for new Kotlin services.

If you are just starting to learn Kotlin or want to update your stack, these libraries are an excellent starting point. They are well-documented, have active communities, and are constantly being improved. Stay tuned for updates on pythonlib.ru — we will continue to publish reviews and guides on the most relevant tools.