rjaros/kvision

KVision is a mature, production-ready framework that has survived nearly 8 years in the Kotlin ecosystem. It holds a respectable 1,341 stars, indicating it has successfully carved out a niche among developers who prefer an object-oriented, imperative UI approach (reminiscent of Vaadin or JavaFX) over the declarative patterns popular in React or JetBrains' own Compose Multiplatform. Its defensibility is anchored by its deep integrations with Kotlin backend frameworks (Ktor, Spring, etc.) and a large library of pre-built UI components, creating significant switching costs for existing users. However, it faces a major platform-level threat from JetBrains. As JetBrains aggressively pushes 'Compose Multiplatform' as the standard for Kotlin UI across all platforms (including Web/WASM), KVision risk becoming a 'legacy' paradigm choice. The 0.0 velocity is a concerning signal, suggesting that either the project has reached full maturity or development momentum is stalling in favor of newer technologies. While frontier AI labs have no interest in building Kotlin web frameworks, the consolidation of the Kotlin ecosystem around JetBrains-native tooling makes it difficult for independent frameworks like KVision to grow beyond their current user base. Its best opportunity lies in serving the specific 'full-stack Kotlin' niche where type-safe RPC and shared code between frontend and backend are prioritized over modern declarative UI trends.