[pron]

Not better -- different. In my opinion, it's best to read the two language's design goals to understand the difference (as those matter a lot more than any particular feature). The Kotlin design goals are outlined in the blog post, and the Ceylon design goals can be found here[1]. IMO, a TLDR would be: Ceylon attempts to replace not just the Java language but also the standard libraries, while Kotlin intends to upgrade the language only and blend into the existing ecosystem. That difference explains many if not most of the decisions regarding the particular features of each language.

[1]: http://ceylon-lang.org/documentation/1.1/faq/ + http://ceylon-lang.org/blog/2012/01/10/goals/