Hey guys, yet another "which framework" question (...

# server

[katien]

Hey guys, yet another "which framework" question (sorry!)
I've got experience doing back end development with Laravel, Express, and Rails. So far, I'm really liking rails and its tools for code generation. Rails does a lot for you and makes setting up an MVP/proof of concept very quick and painless. Are there any kotlin frameworks that are similar in this regard?

[napperley]

Since you mentioned Express you might want to checkout Vert.x (http://vertx.io/) for the server-side, although it is Java based. However Vert.x does have very good Kotlin support, especially when it comes to documentation (http://vertx.io/docs/vertx-core/kotlin/).

[napperley]

Vert.x have some Kotlin examples: https://github.com/vert-x3/vertx-examples/tree/master/kotlin-examples

[napperley]

For a Kotlin server-side solution there is Ktor (http://ktor.io/) which is developed by JetBrains. Another option is HTTP4K (https://github.com/http4k/http4k) , which like Vert.x is a server-side toolkit.

[napperley]

A toolkit is just a collection of libraries that can be easily interchanged with other libraries (popular in some language communities, eg Python). Many libraries are unopinionated and require users to do things explicitly (no major magic involved).

[katien]

Oh boy, that's a lot. Thank you for the recommendations! Would you say one is more similar to rails? Or, if you don't know Rails, would you say one is more beginner friendly?

[napperley]

Haven't tried Ktor (been around for about a year) but do know from other Kotliners (Kotlin developers) that the framework is very easy to use. The next one that is easy to use is Vert.x (has been around for 5 years). Keep in mind that Ktor isn't stable yet. Vert.x is very mature and has a lot of significant adoption in behind it (http://vertx.io/whos_using/).

[katien]

Ktor sounds neat. Love that it's done by jetbrains. I will give that one a go 😄