Java was developed by James Gosling at Sun Microsystems and released in 1995. It has remained a popular language for more than two decades now.

One of the important reasons for the popularity of Java is the Java platform including the Java Virtual Machine (JVM). The Java platform provides security and portability for the Java language. A number of languages emerged in the last few years that aimed to leverage the advantages of the Java platform. They compile to the bytecode and can run on the JVM. These languages include the following frameworks:

• Clojure
• Groovy
• Scala
• JRuby
• Jython

Kotlin aims to address some of the important issues in the Java language and provide a concise alternative. Some of the important differences with the Java language are as follows.