Kiev is more interesting. Most jobs. Most activity. Very big sprawling city mixing old austro-hungarian-polish with soviet (ugh) concrete apartments. Everyone speaks both russian and ukrainian. More often russian. Most shops have people who speak english.
Lviv is cheaper and has more ‘touristy’ feel. More tech. More Polish-Austrian. “Cultural” center of the country. Family life is good here. Not sure it’s as good for ‘singles’ so to speak. (I prefer lviv – it’s very relaxed. Calm. Old european city. very old fashioned people. And all I need to be happy are tourist areas to write and people watch. I haven’t found that elsewhere in ukraine.
Kharkiv. Very cheap. Some tech. Russified.
Dnipropetrovsk … Some Tech. Russified. ( well, 10’s grow on trees. Seriously. It’s worth it just for the scenery.)
Odessa. Good shopping. Black Sea Climate (Too hot in summer for me). Lots of black market activity (cars etc). Good for music, fashion, partying. Russified.
I found apartments overpriced but everything else dirt cheap. And I just loved the entire experience of a civil rather than politcal public discourse.