Exploring Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP) as an iOS Developer 🚀

Meela Dheeraj — Sun, 14 Jun 2026 16:00:47 +0000

While exploring different approaches to cross-platform development, I recently came across Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP).

At first, I assumed it was another "write once, run everywhere" framework.

The more I learned, the more I realized that's not what KMP is trying to be.

Instead of sharing everything, KMP focuses on sharing the parts that are often duplicated across platforms:

✅ Business Logic

✅ Networking

✅ Data Layer

✅ Domain Models

while still allowing teams to build native user interfaces using:

🍎 SwiftUI on iOS

🤖 Jetpack Compose (or Views) on Android

A simplified architecture looks like this:

┌─────────────────────┐
│   Shared Module     │
├─────────────────────┤
│ Business Logic      │
│ Networking (Ktor)   │
│ Data Layer          │
│ Domain Models       │
└──────────┬──────────┘
           │
     ┌─────┴─────┐
     │           │
┌────▼────┐ ┌────▼────┐
│   iOS   │ │ Android │
│ SwiftUI │ │ Compose │
└─────────┘ └─────────┘

What I find interesting is that KMP doesn't force you to abandon native development.

Instead, it tries to solve a very specific problem:

Why maintain the same business rules, networking code, and data models in two different codebases?

Some areas I'm currently exploring:

• Project structure and source sets

• Shared vs platform-specific code

• Ktor for networking

• Dependency Injection

• Compose Multiplatform

• Interoperability between Swift and Kotlin

• Real-world production use cases

For developers already using KMP in production:

What has been the biggest advantage?
What challenges did you face during adoption?
Any lessons you'd share with someone getting started?

Looking forward to learning from the community and sharing my findings as I continue exploring KMP.

KotlinMultiplatform #KMP #Kotlin #iOS #SwiftUI #Android #JetpackCompose #MobileDevelopment #SoftwareArchitecture #CrossPlatform

DEV Community: Meela Dheeraj

Exploring Kotlin Multiplatform (KMP) as an iOS Developer 🚀

KotlinMultiplatform #KMP #Kotlin #iOS #SwiftUI #Android #JetpackCompose #MobileDevelopment #SoftwareArchitecture #CrossPlatform