Originally designed by Quest Aircraft, the Kodiak is an aircraft is competing with the Cessna Caravan both for appearance and market share. The Kodiak has high mounted, single strut braced straight wings. The outer wings taper from roughly half the span to the tip. The undercarriage is fixed, with all single wheels, but floats can be put on it as well. The Kodiak's fuselage with a rounded square cross section has a short taper towards the tail cone, so it looks somewhat “stubby”. Underneath the rear fuselage are two ventral fins. The vertical fin is slightly swept, also the trailing edge. The Kodiak has a turboprop engine with one inlet below the prop spinner, and two small exhausts on each side of the nose.

The different versions of the Kodiak can be identified by

• the length of the fuselage
• the number of cabin windows
• the shape of the cargo pack under the fuselage
• the shape of the ventral fins
• the presence of fairings around the wheels

This is the original Kodiak, as introduced by Quest Aircraft. The fuselage has four cabin windows on each side. It can have an additional cargo pack underneath the fuselage, but this is not standard. In case it has, it starts after the nose gear. Then it also has two ventral fins under the rear fuselage, like on the floats equipped airplanes. The propeller originally had four blades as standard, but the Kodiak 100 can be retrofitted with a five blade one. The float operated Kodiak 100s seem to have a three blade prop.

The Kodiak 100 received some updates during its production. With the Series II the steps in the cargo door are different, the wing roots are sealed better and it has optionally a single point refuelling in the left wing root. The Series III only has internal changes, in particular in the cockpit. 

The stretched so longer version of the Kodiak is the Kodiak 900. This number refers to the maximum output of the engine, but confusingly it is officially designated Kodiak 200. The difference in length is about 1.3 metres, not very obvious, but a fifth cabin helps. However, the Kodiak 900 has a more streamlined cargo pack under the fuselage, with the streamline body already starting under the air intake. Moreover, it has streamline bodies around the wheels (or “wheel pants”) as standard, although these can be removed. The ventral fins/strakes have a cut-off rear corner.