Isn't reference counting a form of garbage collection, though? If you want performance then Objective C and Swift aren't the languages you should be using. There's a reason why Apple recommends C/C++ if you need your code to run as fast as possible and also the reason why the high majority of professional games are written in C++ with either a thin Objective C / Swift wrapper.
Also, you can compile both Java and Kotlin to native images with Graal.
Also, you can compile both Java and Kotlin to native images with Graal.
https://www.graalvm.org/examples/java-kotlin-aot/