Groovy Vs Kotline. Which is in Trending and use?

DevOpsGuy

RajeshKumar1

Short answer: Kotlin is the one trending and growing; Groovy is steady but more niche.

Why Kotlin is “hot”

Android first-class & defaults: Google made Kotlin the default language for new Android code years ago, and Gradle Kotlin DSL is now the default for new Gradle builds and new Android Studio projects—big signal of industry direction. (Android Developers Blog, blog.gradle.org)
Ecosystem momentum: Developer surveys and industry reports show rising Kotlin adoption (overall language popularity, Android, and server-side). (JetBrains)
Tooling & IDE benefits: Strong, static typing → better autocompletion/refactoring in Android Studio and IntelliJ; Google’s docs highlight the Kotlin DSL’s editor integration (with the caveat that builds can be a bit slower than Groovy). (Android Developers)

Where Groovy still shines

Gradle & Jenkins scripting: Groovy remains common in existing Gradle build scripts and Jenkins pipelines; many mature codebases and plugins are Groovy-first. (Gradle continues to support both DSLs.) (docs.gradle.org)
Speed in some builds: Even Google notes Kotlin DSL builds can be slower; some teams stick with Groovy for raw build performance in large projects. (Android Developers)

Practical recommendation

New Android apps / modern Gradle projects: Prefer Kotlin (source + Kotlin DSL for build). It’s the path of least resistance with current tooling and community. (Android Developers Blog, blog.gradle.org)
Existing Groovy-heavy builds or Jenkins pipelines: You can stay on Groovy (stable, well-known), or migrate incrementally where IDE help/type-safety brings value. (docs.gradle.org)

If you tell me your project type (Android app, JVM service, CI/CD scripts) and toolchain (Gradle/Maven/Jenkins), I’ll give a tailored “use Kotlin vs Groovy” call for your setup.

RajeshKumar1

Great question 👍 — Kotlin and Groovy both go far beyond Android SDK, but in quite different directions. Here’s a breakdown:

🚀 Kotlin (outside Android)

Kotlin has grown into a general-purpose JVM language (and even beyond JVM):

Backend development
- Popular in Spring Boot apps (officially supported by Spring team).
- Frameworks like Ktor (from JetBrains) built in Kotlin for writing REST APIs, microservices.
- Used in cloud/serverless functions (AWS Lambda, Google Cloud Functions).
Multiplatform development
- Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP): Share business logic across Android, iOS, desktop, and web.
- Used in cross-platform libraries and SDKs (e.g., by Square, JetBrains).
Desktop applications
- Compose Multiplatform lets you build desktop UIs for Windows, macOS, Linux.
- Competes with frameworks like JavaFX.
Web development
- Kotlin compiles to JavaScript (Kotlin/JS) and WebAssembly (Kotlin/Wasm in progress).
- Used for both frontend (React wrappers) and backend.
Data science & scripting
- Libraries like KotlinDL (deep learning), Kotlin DataFrame, and Jupyter Notebook support.
- Being explored in data engineering pipelines.

⚡ Groovy (outside Android)

Groovy stays strongest in automation, scripting, and JVM integration:

Build automation
- Gradle: Groovy is the original DSL for Gradle build scripts (still widely used).
CI/CD pipelines
- Jenkins Pipelines: Groovy-based declarative and scripted pipelines are the de facto standard.
Scripting language
- Embedded in Java apps to provide scripting capabilities.
- Used for quick automation, file processing, system scripts (like Python/Ruby).
Enterprise & frameworks
- Apache Groovy ecosystem: libraries like GPars (concurrency), Spock (testing framework).
- Grails Framework: A full-stack web framework (like Rails, but JVM-based).
Testing
- Spock Framework (Groovy-based) is a popular testing/mocking framework, often used even in Java/Kotlin projects.

🔑 Quick Comparison of “other uses”

| Language | Key Non-Android Uses |
| ---------- | -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| Kotlin | Spring Boot, Ktor, Multiplatform (KMP), Compose Desktop, Kotlin/JS, Data science |
| Groovy | Jenkins pipelines, Gradle builds, Grails web framework, Spock testing, scripting |

👉 So, Kotlin is growing in application development (apps, services, cross-platform), while Groovy dominates in tooling and automation (builds, pipelines, testing).

Would you like me to create a mind map–style diagram showing the “ecosystem & use cases” of Kotlin vs Groovy so it’s easier to visualize where each language is strong?