BDD Frameworks in Kotlin: Choosing the Right Tool Based on Who Reads the Output

A developer with over 15 years of JVM acceptance testing experience has published a guide comparing BDD frameworks available for Kotlin, including Cucumber, JBehave, Kotest BehaviorSpec, Spek, JGiven, Serenity BDD, and Concordion. The author argues that framework selection should hinge on a single key question: who reads the test output and whether they are required to act on it. For teams where only developers consume test results, lightweight tools like Kotest or JUnit with descriptive test names are recommended, as adding a BDD framework introduces overhead without benefit. When non-technical stakeholders such as product owners or analysts need to review outcomes, a human-readable artefact becomes necessary, making tools like Cucumber or Serenity BDD more relevant. The author also challenges the common assumption that Cucumber is essential for non-developer collaboration, noting that acceptance criteria are typically written in project management tools like Jira rather than directly in feature files.