Ktor is a Kotlin web framework for building asynchronous HTTP services and APIs. Built on Kotlin coroutines, it's lightweight, high-performance, and philosophically minimal (you choose persistence, validation, logging—no batteries-included). Routing is type-safe, serialization is explicit (using kotlinx.serialization), and the async model is first-class. Ktor supports both client and server use cases. Server side: build REST APIs, WebSockets. Client side: make HTTP requests with coroutines.