Difference between Kotlin plugins

Question

What are the differences between these three Kotlin plugins and what do they actually do?

plugins {
    id 'kotlin-android'
    id 'org.jetbrains.kotlin.android'
    id "org.jetbrains.kotlin.jvm" version "1.6.20"
}

The third one seems to be the recommended way specially when using Kotlin Coroutines

Answer 1

These plugins provide integration with different other Gradle plugins. They both setup compiling Kotlin for the JVM, but aim to interoperate with different other tools.

• org.jetbrains.kotlin.android or kotlin-android

  This plugin offers integration of Kotlin with the Android Gradle plugin, which should also be applied to the project. The Kotlin compilations are set up to be included in the builds of Android variants (e.g. debug, release, testDebug etc.)

  The IDs kotlin-android and org.jetbrains.kotlin.android designate the same Gradle plugin. The only difference is that the "full" ID org.jetbrains.kotlin.android can be used for resolving the plugin from the Gradle Plugin Portal, while the shorter ID kotlin-android can only be used for applying the plugin if you already have it on the build classpath (i.e. it's added elsewhere).

• org.jetbrains.kotlin.jvm (also has a shorter alias kotlin)

  This is the plugin for building Kotlin projects that target JVM without Android support.

  The plugin offers integration with the Gradle java plugin (as well as java-library or application). The project that applies this plugin can also use Java sources. The Kotlin compilations are wired with the java plugin's source sets (main and test by default)

Normally you should only apply one of these plugins, depending on whether you target Android or "standard" JVM. If you need to target both platforms, you should use the Kotlin Multiplatform plugin by ID org.jetbrains.kotlin.multiplatform, which adds the DSL to setup the targets in the project. Those might include jvm() and android(), as well as other targets: JS, WASM, Kotlin/Native.