I’m initiating a new project to explore the Kotlin language, and I’m curious about the preferred build tool for Kotlin—Maven or Gradle. Could you please provide insights into why one is recommended over the other? Thanks!
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Based on my limited knowledge, I think Gradle is preferred.
If you’re just doing basic Kotlin work, I don’t think it actually matters, but it seems like all the extra Kotlin stuff relies on Gradle and doesn’t use Maven at all. Stuff like multiplatform, or Jetpack Compose, or even Android… idk if you can use Android with Maven, but you can’t use Jetpack Compose with Maven, and I don’t think you can use multiplatform with Maven either. So at least from the perspective of Jetbrains, I would say they definitely prefer Gradle over Maven.
For exploring the language: neither. Just use IDEA and concentrate on exploring the language.
Personally I prefer Maven (much cleaner) and most Kotlin tools and IDEA work with both Maven and Gradle. JetBrains is doing a good job of that. However others don’t. Most notably Google. Sadly Google steamrolled over the excellent Maven plugin for Android in favour of a chaotic Gradle toolchain.
Isn’t Jetpack Compose a Jetbrains library? That one doesn’t have a Maven plugin as far as I know.
Jetpack Compose is an Android library. I already addressed that for Android you have no choice any more then to use Gradle. But this is not a Kotlin / Jetbrains restricting. It’s an Android / Google restriction.
I use Gradle only for Android development and Maven for everything else.
Ah, I thought Jetpack Compose was by Jetbrains. Probably an assumption on my part, since the name starts with “Jet”…
Jetbrains maintains the multiplatform version of Compose, though.