Kotlin Multiplatform Deep Dive — Introduction

Becoming a cross-platform app developer with tools you already know

Kotlin Multiplatform is up and rising. Let’s have a look at how we can master it and become cross-platform developers using all the tools we use all day already.

Note: This is part 1 of the tutorial. More parts will follow.

What Is Kotlin Multiplatform?

Kotlin Multiplatform — or KMP — is another approach to cross-platform development. However, unlike other tools like Flutter or React Native, it is not a fully contained ecosystem.

That means a few great things:

• Apps are still native
• The amount of KMP code is variable
• Native libraries and code is still accessible
• Native and familiar tooling (Android Studio, Xcode)

KMP relies only on Gradle and Kotlin language tools, there is no generated project or vendor lock-in. It is up to the developer how much code the KMP part makes up.

This removes some of the downsides of cross-platform development:

• Ecosystem lock-in
• Non-transparent tooling
• Flunky hardware access