Gitpedia

Ktor

Framework for quickly creating connected applications in Kotlin with minimal effort

From ktorio·Updated May 31, 2026·View on GitHub·

Ktor is an asynchronous framework for creating microservices, web applications and more. Written in Kotlin from the ground up. The project is written primarily in Kotlin, distributed under the Apache License 2.0 license, first published in 2015. It has gained significant community traction with 14,419 stars and 1,257 forks on GitHub. Key topics include: async, asynchronous, kotlin, web, web-framework.

Latest release: 3.5.0
May 18, 2026View Changelog →
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Official JetBrains project
Maven Central
Kotlin
Slack channel
GitHub License
Contribute with Gitpod

Ktor is an asynchronous framework for creating microservices, web applications and more. Written in Kotlin from the
ground up.

First add the dependency to your project:

kotlin
repositories { mavenCentral() } dependencies { implementation("io.ktor:ktor-server-netty:$ktor_version") }

Then create an Application and install some features:

kotlin
import io.ktor.server.netty.* import io.ktor.server.routing.* import io.ktor.server.application.* import io.ktor.http.* import io.ktor.server.response.* import io.ktor.server.engine.* fun main(args: Array<String>) { embeddedServer(Netty, 8080) { routing { get("/") { call.respondText("Hello, world!", ContentType.Text.Html) } } }.start(wait = true) }

You also can use Ktor Gradle Plugin to configure bom, run tasks and deployment:

kotlin
plugins { id("io.ktor.plugin") version "3.1.1" } dependencies { implementation("io.ktor:ktor-server-netty") }

To run the created application, execute:

shell
./gradlew run
  • Runs embedded web server on localhost:8080
  • Installs routing and responds with Hello, world! when receiving a GET http request for the root path

Start using Ktor

Build your first Kotlin HTTP or RESTful application using Ktor: start.ktor.io

Principles

Unopinionated

Ktor Framework doesn't impose a lot of constraints on what technology a project is going to use – logging,
templating, messaging, persistence, serialization, dependency injection, etc.
Sometimes it may be required to implement a simple interface, but usually it is a matter of writing a
transforming or intercepting function. Features are installed into the application using a unified interception
mechanism
which allows building arbitrary pipelines.

Ktor Applications can be hosted in any servlet container with Servlet 3.0+ API support such as Tomcat, or
standalone using Netty or Jetty. Support for other hosts can be added through the unified hosting API.

Ktor APIs are mostly functions calls with lambdas. Thanks to Kotlin DSL capabilities, the code looks declarative.
Application composition is entirely up to the developer's choice – with functions or classes, using dependency injection
framework or doing it all manually in the main function.

Asynchronous

The Ktor pipeline machinery and API are utilising Kotlin coroutines to provide easy-to-use asynchronous
programming model without making it too cumbersome. All host implementations are using asynchronous I/O facilities
to avoid thread blocking.

Testable

Ktor applications can be hosted in a special test environment, which emulates a web server to some
extent without actually doing any networking. It provides easy way to test an application without mocking
too much stuff, and still achieve good performance while validating application calls. Running integration tests with a
real
embedded web server are of course possible, too.

JetBrains Product

Ktor is an official JetBrains product and is primarily developed by the team at JetBrains, with
contributions
from the community.

Documentation

Please visit ktor.io for Quick Start and detailed explanations of features, usage and machinery.

  • Getting started with Gradle
  • Getting started with Maven
  • Getting started with IDEA

Reporting Issues / Support

Please use our issue tracker for filing feature requests and bugs. If
you'd like to ask a question, we recommend StackOverflow where
members of the team monitor frequently.

There is also community support on the Kotlin Slack Ktor channel

Reporting Security Vulnerabilities

If you find a security vulnerability in Ktor, we kindly request that you reach out to the JetBrains security team via
our responsible disclosure process.

Inspirations

Kotlin web frameworks such as Wasabi and Kara, which are currently deprecated.

Contributing

Please see the contribution guide and the Code of conduct before contributing.

Contributors

Showing top 12 contributors by commit count.

View all contributors on GitHub →

This article is auto-generated from ktorio/ktor via the GitHub API.Last fetched: 5/31/2026