What are the best alternatives to Java for Android development?

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score 24 · Accepted Answer

Kotlin

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Top Pro

Amazing IDE support

Since Kotlin is made by Jetbrains (the developers of IntelliJ IDEA) so it stands to reason that the IntelliJ support for Kotlin is also great. See More

Top Con

The need for Java interoperability has forced some limitations

The need to make Kotlin interoperable with Java has caused some unintuitive limitations to the language design. See More

MagicalThoas's Experience

Writing enterprise applications in Kotlin. See More

Specs

Price:Free, Open Source

Current stable version:1.3

Site:http://kotlinlang.org

Top Pro

Java interoperability

Since it runs on the JVM, Kotlin is 100% interoperable with Java and can use existing Java frameworks and libraries. See More

Top Pro

No runtime overhead

Because the standard library is pretty small and tight, it mostly consists of focused extensions of the Java standard library. See More

Top Pro

Now officially supported by Google

Top Pro

Easy to learn if you have prior programming experience

Kotlin's syntax is extremely easy to understand. The language can be picked up in a few hours just by reading the language reference. See More

Top Pro

Low-risk adoption for existing Java codebases

Since it has such a good interoperability with Java, Java libraries, and Java tools. It can be adopted for an existing Java codebase at little to no cost. The codebase can be converted from Java to Kotlin little by little without ever disrupting the functionality of the application itself. See More

Top Pro

Officially supported for Android development

Starting with version 3.0 of Android Studio, Kotlin support will be built-in. This means that it's now easier than ever to use Kotlin for existing Android projects or even start writing Android apps only with Kotlin from scratch. This also means that Kotlin and Kotlin plugins for Android Studio will be fully supported in the future and their likelihood of being abandoned is quite small since Google is fully embracing the language for their Android ecosystem (alongside Java and C++). See More

Top Pro

Easy adoption for existing Java programmers

Kotlin runs on the JVM and Java interoperability has been one of the main objectives since the language was born. It runs everywhere Java does; web servers, mobile devices (Android), and desktop applications. It also works with all the major tools in the Java ecosystem like Eclipse, IntelliJ, Maven, Ant, Gradle, Spring Boot, etc. All of this makes adoption extremely easy even for existing Java projects. On top of this there's also ensured Type safety and less boilerplate code needed. See More

Top Pro

Great tooling support

Since Kotlin is made by Jetbrains (the developers of IntelliJ IDEA) so it stands to reason that the IntelliJ support for Kotlin is also great. Besides that, Kotlin also works well with existing Java tools such as Eclipse, Maven, Gradle, Android Studio, etc... See More

Top Pro

Does not impose a particular philosophy of programming

It's not overly OOP like Java and it does not enforce strict functional paradigms either. See More

Top Pro

Multi platform support

Kotlin code can be compiled into JVM byte code, JavaScript and (soon) Native code. This allow simply share some code between mobile app for Android and iOS as well as server and desktop standalone apps. See More

Top Pro

Is built to solve industrial problems

Kotlin has been designed and built by developers who have an industrial background and not an academic one. As such, it tries to solve issues mostly found in industrial settings. For example, the Kotlin type system helps developers avoid null pointer exceptions. Reasearch languages usually do not have null at all, but APIs and large codebases usually need null. See More

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The Best 1 of 12 OptionsWhy?

My Recommendation for Kotlin

My Recommendation for Kotlin

Amazing IDE support

The need for Java interoperability has forced some limitations

Java interoperability

No runtime overhead

Now officially supported by Google

Easy to learn if you have prior programming experience

Low-risk adoption for existing Java codebases

Officially supported for Android development

Easy adoption for existing Java programmers

Great tooling support

Does not impose a particular philosophy of programming

Multi platform support

Is built to solve industrial problems

11 Other Options Considered

My Recommendation for Clojure

My Recommendation for Clojure

Simplicity as a pillar of culture.

Confusing error messages

Few components of syntax

Huge ecosystem of libraries to work with

Designed for concurrency

Extremely useful tool for automation, configuration and dependency management available out of the box

Interactive development

My Recommendation for Lua

My Recommendation for Lua

Corona

Batteries not included

LÖVE

Easy to make mistakes when declaring variables

Overall language

Fast

Clean and simple syntax suitable for beginners

Very easy to integrate with C and C++

Helpful community

There are lots of quality game engines written in Lua

My Recommendation for C++

My Recommendation for C++

Best way to understand algorithms

Module system is not great

Teaches low-level programming, but doesn't have as many pitfalls as C

Teaches problem solving

Huge language supports most everything

My Recommendation for Kivy

My Recommendation for Kivy

3D

Multitouch gestures

Kv design language

My Recommendation for Beeware

My Recommendation for Beeware

Open source

Still in alpha

One codebase. Multiple apps.

Python makes it easier for beginners to start.

My Recommendation for C#

My Recommendation for C#

Incredibly well-engineered language

Complex syntax

Supports some functional features

Sandboxing has performance implications

My Recommendation for Kawa

My Recommendation for Kawa

My Recommendation for PhoneGap

My Recommendation for PhoneGap

My Recommendation for Delphi

My Recommendation for Delphi

Free Community Edition

Single code base to create Windows, iOS, Mac OS and Android app

Runtime speed

Able to deliver single executable applications

Strongly typed

My Recommendation for Xtend

My Recommendation for Xtend

Difficult to configure in Android Studio

Ruby-like syntactic conveniences

Slower compilation

Type inference

Code runs just as fast as Java