Multiplatform News

Know Kotlin? Ship It Everywhere and Win at Shipaton 2026

Somewhere in your notes there’s an app idea waiting for a free weekend that never comes. Consider this its official deadline: RevenueCat Shipaton 2026, the world’s biggest mobile hackathon, runs August 1 to September 30.

If you know Kotlin, that idea is closer to the App Store than you think.

Join the Shipaton

The Ship Kotlin Everywhere Award

JetBrains is a Gold Sponsor of Shipaton this year, with our own category. The idea is simple: reuse the Kotlin you already know to build one brand-new app and bring it to multiple platforms, including Android, iOS, desktop, and web, with Kotlin Multiplatform and Compose Multiplatform.

You don’t need to hit all four platforms. Judges reward effective cross-platform development, not platform count alone.

What you can win

The award has a $30,000 prize pool split among three winners: $15,000, $10,000, and $5,000. The first-place app also receives Shipaton’s first-place category winner package: a feature on a Times Square billboard, an invitation to RevenueCat’s App Growth Annual conference in New York City on October 21, a custom Shippy trophy, and a media spotlight.

One more thing: you submit once and compete everywhere. Your Kotlin Multiplatform app also stays in the running for the $100,000 Grand Prize and more than 20 other categories, from #BuildInPublic to the Best Game Award, with over $1,000,000 worth of prizes in total.

Don’t just take our word for it. Here’s Chris Krueger, whose app Momental took first place in our KMP category at Shipaton 2025:

“Building Momental with Kotlin Multiplatform was very enjoyable. Sharing one codebase for Android and iOS gave me so much more time to focus on user feedback and actually improving the app. I was amazed how quickly I could build a beautiful, complex UI — even features like a full music player with soundscapes worked smoothly across platforms.

If you’re hesitating, just enter the challenge. It forces you to grow, explore new parts of KMP, and ship faster than you expect. You’ll reach way more users than you think possible.”

What you get as a participant

• IntelliJ IDEA Ultimate, free for 3 months for the first 1,000 builders
• Access to Junie, our AI coding agent, for 2 months for 200 builders ready to build in public
• A Starter Guide, an AI Guide, weekly livestreams, and JetBrains advocates answering questions in Discord

Ready to ship?

Everything you need is on the award page: rules, the starter kit, offers, and the timeline.

Join the Ship Kotlin Everywhere Award

Happy shipping!