Thread vs coroutines — Difference between thread and Kotlin coroutine in detail.

SUMIT KUMAR
7 min readJan 6, 2025

Imagine you are a chef preparing a delicious meal in a busy restaurant. The main thread represents you, the chef, responsible for managing the entire cooking process, including preparing dishes and serving them to customers.

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Using Threads:

In a traditional scenario with threads, you have a single kitchen (a single thread) where all the cooking takes place. As orders (tasks) come in, you need to manage multiple pans simultaneously to prepare different dishes (concurrent tasks). Each time you start cooking a dish, you must wait for it to finish before moving on to the next, which can slow down the overall cooking process. Handling many pans (threads) at once can become overwhelming, and if not managed efficiently, it can lead to chaos in the kitchen.

Using Coroutines:

Now, let’s consider using coroutines in the kitchen. In this approach, you are still the main thread (chef) but with a twist. Instead of one kitchen, you have a set of designated cooking stations (coroutines) where you can prepare different dishes concurrently. Each station handles a specific task independently, such as…

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SUMIT KUMAR
SUMIT KUMAR

Written by SUMIT KUMAR

SDE(Android) || Ex-Ingenium || Modern Mobile Developer📱

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