When comparing Kotlin vs Zig, the Slant community recommends Kotlin for most people. In the question“What are the best (productivity-enhancing, well-designed, and concise, rather than just popular or time-tested) programming languages?” Kotlin is ranked 17th while Zig is ranked 18th. The most important reason people chose Kotlin is:
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...
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
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...
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.
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.
Pro No runtime overhead
The standard library is relatively small and tight. It mostly consists of focused extensions of the Java standard library and as such adds no additional runtime overhead to existing Java projects.
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++).
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.
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.
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
.
Pro Some safety
It's safer than C, at least.
Pro C Interop
Zig programs can import C libraries and export header files to be used in C programs.
Pro Performance
Zig is pretty fast, in some cases even faster than C.
Pro Cross-compilation is easy
The Zig compiler can build artifacts for any Tier 3 Supported platform without additional downloads.
Pro Control flow is simple and obvious
No operator overloading, property methods, runtime dispatch, macros, etc.
Pro Small binary
Produces binary smaller than C.
Pro Compile-time execution
Zig can execute code at compile-time, allowing for more performant and readable programs.
Pro No Hidden Control flow
Zig will not do anything on your back that might slow down your program & make you loose your control over your program.
Cons
Con May be hard for programmers already used to imperative style to learn functional programming from Kotlin
Since Kotlin does not enforce any particular paradigms and is not purely functional, it can be pretty easy to fall back to imperative programming habits if a programmer comes from an imperative background.
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.
Con Convoluted syntax
Claims to be an improvement over C, but in this area, not really.
Con No lambdas
Missing many key and useful features other languages have.
Con Deceptively gives impression it's near being production ready
No plans to hit 1.0 until 2025 (3 years later), according to Zig Roadmap speech. Impression is given that (0.9.1) language was close to ready, when it's not.
Con Creator admits to not knowing what he's doing
Creator admits his shortcomings during Zig Roadmap speech. Very disturbing. Not a language to invest in or take seriously, outside personal experimentation.
Con No closures
Does not have closures.
Con Almost no community
Lacking in libraries and users.
Con No interfaces/traits
Features that are useful are missing, where you can find them in other languages.
Con Fundraising looks suspicious
Why do we keep seeing an overhyped unfinished alpha level language showing up everywhere? That answer looks like a financial incentive to promote the language, the Zig Software Foundation, that is making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year from donations. To aggressively maintain cash flow, it appears any opinions that goes against their narrative is suppressed, attacked, or eliminated. All while the hype machine runs rampant. That isn't a language for the people, that looks to be a cash grab for the few that will result in nothing useful. Save yourself the headache and games, better to just use C or other languages with C-like syntax, can interface with C, and are actually useful. Better to not waste your valuable time on crap like Zig, false media hype, or getting scammed.
”If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.”
This blog has published 2 excellent articles on how Zig's claims do not live up to reality after more than 6 years of development.
Con Poor compiler errors
Several years into development, language still a mess, and no hope of fixing itself for yet more years later.
Con No standard package manager
Several years into development, and still no standard package manager is ridiculous.
Con Exhibits cult-like behavior and animosity towards other programming languages
Strange culture that bashes other languages and are not open to criticism about the faults of their language. Very close-minded, sometimes scary.
