Kotlin vs Rust: Rating, Votes and Features
- License: Kotlin — Apache-2.0; Rust — MIT or Apache-2.0.
- Paradigms: Kotlin — Functional, Object-oriented; Rust — Concurrent, Functional, Procedural.
- Memory management: Kotlin — Garbage collected; Rust — Ownership and borrowing.
Kotlin — November 2026: 3 votes, rating 7.4/10.
Rust — November 2026: 4 votes, rating 7.8/10.
| Kotlin | Rust | |
|---|---|---|
| Category | programming language | programming language |
| Developer | JetBrains | Rust Foundation |
| Created by | Andrey Breslav | Graydon Hoare |
| First release | 2011 | 2012 |
| License | Apache-2.0 | MIT or Apache-2.0 |
| Open source | Yes | Yes |
| Pricing | Free | Free |
| Website | https://kotlinlang.org | https://www.rust-lang.org |
| Paradigms | Functional, Object-oriented | Concurrent, Functional, Procedural |
| Typing | Static | Static |
| Type strength | Strong | Strong |
| Type inference | Yes | Yes |
| Memory management | Garbage collected | Ownership and borrowing |
| Runs as | Bytecode on a virtual machine | Native code |
| Main implementation | Kotlin/JVM, also Native and JS | rustc (LLVM) |
| Concurrency | Coroutines | Threads, async/await, checked for data races |
| Null safety | Yes | Yes |
| Package manager | Gradle, Maven | Cargo |
| Used for | Back end, Mobile | Back end, Embedded, Systems |
| Specification | Kotlin Language Specification | The Ferrocene Language Specification, adopted by the Rust project in 2025 |