New IDE with Kotlin Support: First Look at a Revolutionary Tool
The Kotlin developer community has received a fresh tool that promises to change the approach to application development. The new integrated development environment (IDE), created specifically with the features of the Kotlin language in mind, is already available for beta testing. In this review, we will break down the key features that make it a worthy alternative to traditional solutions.
What is this IDE?
The new development environment, operating under the working name KodeFlow, was created by a team of former JetBrains and Google engineers. Unlike IntelliJ IDEA, which is a universal platform, KodeFlow is optimized exclusively for the Kotlin ecosystem — from Android to server backend and Kotlin Multiplatform.
Key Features
- AI-based Intelligent Autocomplete — the system predicts not only data types but also entire constructs typical of idiomatic Kotlin. For example, when typing
listOf, the IDE immediately offers options with lambdas and filtering. - Native Kotlin Multiplatform Support — built-in templates for commonMain, androidMain, and iosMain. Switching between platforms occurs without reloading the project.
- Smart Refactoring Engine — automatic conversion of Java code to Kotlin while preserving semantics, as well as suggestions for replacing loops with higher-order functions.
- Visual Coroutine Debugger — displaying the call stack of suspend functions as a graph with a timeline. This allows you to see exactly where a coroutine is suspended and what data is being passed.
- Up to 40% Faster Gradle Integration — thanks to configuration caching and parallel dependency loading.
Why is this important for Kotlin developers?
Until now, the main tool for Kotlin remained IntelliJ IDEA, which, although powerful, is overloaded with features for Java and other languages. The new IDE solves the following problems:
- Lowering the Entry Barrier — a simplified interface without unnecessary panels, which is especially useful for beginners learning Kotlin from scratch.
- Performance — a lightweight engine that starts up in 3-5 seconds even on machines with 8 GB of RAM.
- Multiplatform Development — no need to configure plugins manually; everything is pre-installed out of the box.
First Impressions and Predictions
Testing has shown that the IDE works stably with projects up to 50,000 lines of code. AI hints indeed speed up writing boilerplate code by 2-3 times. However, there are also downsides: full support for Kotlin Script (.kts) is currently missing, and there is no built-in memory profiler.
The full release is expected early next quarter. The developers have already announced a free version for non-commercial use and corporate licenses starting at $99 per year.
How to try it?
You can download the beta version from the project's official website. Installation requires:
- Java 17 or higher
- OS: Windows 10/11, macOS 12+,