Best IDEs and Tools for Kotlin Development in 2025

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Best IDEs and Tools for Kotlin Development: A Complete Selection Guide

Kotlin has rapidly gained popularity as a modern, concise, and safe programming language. From mobile development for Android to server-side solutions and multiplatform projects — Kotlin is used everywhere. However, the success of any project largely depends on a properly chosen toolset. In this article, we will review the best IDEs and tools for Kotlin development that will help you write clean, efficient, and maintainable code.

1. IntelliJ IDEA — The Benchmark IDE for Kotlin

IntelliJ IDEA from JetBrains is, without exaggeration, the most popular and powerful IDE for Kotlin. The developers of the Kotlin language itself use this environment, so the integration here is maximally deep and native.

Key Features:

Smart Autocompletion: IntelliJ IDEA analyzes the context and offers the most relevant options, including call chains.
Refactoring: Safe renaming, function extraction, replacing lambdas with method references, and much more.
Code Inspections: The environment highlights potential errors, memory leaks, and offers automatic fixes.
Kotlin Scripting: Support for .kts files for writing scripts and Gradle configurations.

Example of working with null safety in IntelliJ IDEA:

fun processUser(user: User?) {    // IDE will highlight an error if null is not handled    val name = user?.name ?: "Guest"    println("Hello, $name")}

IntelliJ IDEA is available in two versions: Community (free) and Ultimate (paid, with support for Spring, Ktor, and other frameworks). For most tasks, including Android development, the Community version is quite sufficient.

2. Android Studio — The Standard for Mobile Development

If your goal is to create Android applications in Kotlin, then Android Studio is the official and recommended environment. It is based on IntelliJ IDEA Community but contains additional tools specific to the Android ecosystem.

Advantages for a Kotlin Developer:

Layout Editor: A visual editor for XML layouts with support for Jetpack Compose.
Android Emulator: A built-in emulator for testing applications.
Profiler: Tools for analyzing performance, memory, and network.
Kotlin DSL Support: Configuring Gradle builds using build.gradle.kts.

Example of a simple screen using Jetpack Compose in Android Studio:

@Composablefun Greeting(name: String) {    Text(text = "Hello, $name!", modifier = Modifier.padding(16.dp))}

@Preview(showBackground = true)@Composablefun DefaultPreview() {    MyAppTheme {        Greeting("Kotlin Developer")    }}

Android Studio is regularly updated alongside the release of new versions of Kotlin and the Android SDK, ensuring the tools remain up-to-date.

3. VS Code with Extensions — A Lightweight Alternative

For those who prefer lightweight editors, Visual Studio Code is an excellent choice. With a set of extensions, it can be turned into a full-fledged environment for Kotlin development.