Even though Kotlin and Java share many similar features, they aren’t based on the same system. Kotlin was developed by IDE Jet Brains, while Java was developed by Sun Microsystems (now owned by Oracle. The creators of both languages have chosen an object-based approach. Additionally, both languages are statically written. However, it is not critical that you know Java before learning to code Kotlin. Nevertheless, if you decide to learn the basics of Java, it might give you an edge when coding with Kotlin.