What Kotlin Developers are Saying about Koin: Key Insights from 100+ Interviews

Over the last six months, we spoke with more than 100 developers using Koin in their Kotlin-based mobile apps. That’s over 75 hours of feedback that helped us have a clear picture of what developers appreciate about Koin and where they see room for improvement. Here’s a breakdown of what we’ve learned.

What developers love about koin

The feedback is clear: Koin’s simplicity and efficiency stand out. Here are the top things developers appreciate:

• • Simplified Dependency Injection (DI): Developers love how easy it is to implement DI with Koin. There's no complex boilerplate to deal with, and it just works.
  • Intuitive Kotlin DSL: Koin provides a Kotlin DSL that allows you to describe your app’s dependencies in a simple and intuitive way, with a short learning curve and easy testing setup that helps you get started quickly
  • Fast build times: Developers highlighted that Koin’s efficient design contributes to fast build and compile times, which helps keep development cycles short and iterations quick.
  • Architectural flexibility: Koin’s non-opinionated design was another major positive. Developers can structure their projects in the way that makes the most sense for them, giving them more control over their app architecture without being forced into rigid patterns.
  • Kotlin-native integration: Koin integrates seamlessly with Kotlin, whether you’re working on Android, Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP), or Ktor projects. This native compatibility makes it a natural fit for Kotlin developers and allows them to easily adopt the framework into their workflows.

Where Koin could improve

While developers are largely happy with Koin, there are a few areas where they feel improvements could be made. Here's where we’re focusing our efforts:

Compilation safety

Many Koin developers highlighted the importance of detecting issues like missing dependencies or circular dependencies before runtime and expressed interest in compilation safety support. In response, we’ve started developing a Koin IDE Plugin to address these needs.

The plugin, currently in beta, goes beyond basic safety checks. It offers a graphical tree view of your configuration, advanced code navigation capabilities, and an innovative approach to ensuring compilation safety. 

Performance benchmarks

Some Koin users interviewed already use Koin in large-scale apps and shared positive experiences. However, they noted that some developers still question whether Koin is well-suited for such projects compared to frameworks like Dagger2 or Hilt.

In response, we conducted a detailed performance benchmark to demonstrate Koin’s performance vs Dagger2/Hilt using the NowInAndroid app and the latest version of Koin (4.0) and the Koin AndroidX Startup feature.

Debugging challenges in mobile app development

Debugging Kotlin applications and SDK libraries was identified as a pain point by many developers. To address this, we asked them about the tools they currently use in both development and production, their limitations, and what they would like to see improved. We also shared with them an early version of our specialised debugging tool for Koin.

Based on their feedback, we’ve made important improvements, updated the roadmap and are excited to unveil the new version of the Kotzilla Platform . Designed specifically for Kotlin and Koin users, it helps identify and resolve issues in your Kotlin apps before they impact your users.

In this article we dive into the challenges of debugging mobile apps and how the Kotzilla Platform helps you identify, analyse and resolve performance, memory, and structural issues in your apps and SDKs.