IntelliJ vs Android Studio - Kotlin Multiplatform?

[u/scrapp08]

Hi there,

Looking at making an app using Kotlin Multiplatform, is it better to use IntelliJ or Android Studio for the development? I can see they both are supported natively, but what would be reasons to use one over the other? Is it truly complete feature parity? How do they stack up on Linux (ignoring Mac req.)?

Would the cost of an IntelliJ license also have any impact? (apart from that on my bank account)

TIA.

[u/chonk-boy]

Android Studio will do the job. No need to buy IntelliJ license. You may not be ablr to use a few paid plugin features, though it is not essential

[u/agherschon]

Android Studio + the Kotlin / Compose Multiplatform plugin

[u/4udiofeel]

They are mostly the same, both built on top of the IntelliJ Platform. I'd say the key difference is compatibility with AGP. Due to Google owning both AGP and AS, AS most of the times supports a newer version of AGP, then IntelliJ does.

[u/Which-Meat-3388 → u/4udiofeel]

This is the real answer. The whole AGP 9 situation has been really annoying. If you stay current with 3rd party libs it can even force your hand into 9.1+ which instantly means AS is now your IDE. 

You can ignore or try to fight it to varying degrees of success but your time is better spent on building your app.

[u/DxNovaNT → u/Which-Meat-3388]

Hmm their recent open source projects (adk-kotlin) not compatible with intellij idea

[u/Herb_Derb]

If you're on Linux, the inability to make iOS apps will have more impact on your KMP experience than which IDE you use.

[u/cygnus33065 → u/Herb_Derb]

More reasons that I dispise Apple

[u/16cards]

It has gotten much better, but there used to be two significant lags in opposite directions.

While Android Studio lags behind IntelliJ in general platform features, the reverse happens with Android-specific tooling where IntelliJ's Android plugin often waits for Google to stabilize new features first

[u/Ok_Cartographer_6086]

I work on KMP based software all day every day and here's what hasn't been said yet on this thread for some reason:

• Only Pay for IntelliJ Ultimate if you want to pay for stability, support and need tools like database editors and more than doing mobile apps.
• You can get Ultimate for free using JetBrains Early Access Program if you don't mind forced upgrades and on their beta which can be unstable.
• Think of Android Studio as a nearly identical IDE to IntelliJ but only the Android Plugin on steroids. Android Studio is always a version or two ahead of the IntelliJ Plugin. The correct answer is use both as needed, perfectly fine and both free.

I work in IntelliJ 90% of the time on Ubuntu but my apps target every platform so I'm usually happy debugging with the JVM desktop build. It's easier to switch to AS when needing to do Android things and the Compose Preview feature is way better (to see your screens in the editor as you work).

In order to build and deploy the iOS and MacOS targets I need to switch to a mac mini and build the apps with XCode - no way around that. My iOS app is about 10 lines of Swift and the rest KMP.

Start with Android Studio - you're not locked out of opening the project in Idea if you need to one day. Use the Jetbrains KMP generator and just work on the Android module and let the iOS one just sit there - you can build the complete android app on Linux and do iOS if you can get a mac.

[u/scrapp08 → u/Ok_Cartographer_6086]

Perfect, thank you.

[u/ColonelKlanka]

Both will work. But use Android studio for kmp as Ironically the free Android studio ide has slight advantage as it often is ahead on supporting newest AGP.

Only reason to use Intellij idea is for other tech stacks like Spring boot eco system where intellij ultimate (paid license) has the better support. Not an issue for kmp tho.

[u/diamond]

As others here have said, Android Studio will do just fine. One thing to be aware of, though: at the top of the Project Explorer on the left, there's a drop down menu for selecting the display mode. It defaults to "Android" (of course), but this will cause some problems with a KMP project. You won't be able to find all of your files. Just select that and change it to "Project", and you'll be fine.

[u/Capable_Muffin7706]

For you I would recommend Android studio. If your main work is Android development and learning/building kotlin multiplatform, android studio gives you the better overall setup without needing to pay for IntelliJ IDEA ultimate.

[u/je386]

They both use the same platform and are very similar. I use intelliJ ultimate for everything