The solar atmosphere is structured and inhomogeneous, both horizontally and vertically. The omnipresence of coronal magnetic loops implies gradients of the equilibrium plasma quantities such as the density, magnetic field, and temperature. These gradients are responsible for the excitation of drift waves that grow both within the twocomponent fluid description (both in the presence of collisions and without it) and within the two-component kinetic descriptions (due to purely kinetic effects). In this work, the effects of the density gradient in the direction perpendicular to the magnetic field vector are investigated within the kinetic theory, in both electrostatic (ES) and electromagnetic (EM) regimes. The EM regime implies the coupling of the gradient-driven drift wave with the Alfvén wave. The growth rates for the two cases are calculated and compared. It is found that, in general, the ES regime is characterized by stronger growth rates, as compared with the EM perturbations. Also discussed is the stochastic heating associated with the drift wave. The released amount of energy density due to this heating should be more dependent on the magnitude of the background magnetic field than on the coupling of the drift and Alfvén waves. The stochastic heating is expected to be much higher in regions with a stronger magnetic field. On the whole, the energy release rate caused by the stochastic heating can be several orders of magnitude above the value presently accepted as necessary for a sustainable coronal heating. The vertical stratification and the very long wavelengths along the magnetic loops imply that a drift-Alfvén wave, propagating as a twisted structure along the loop, in fact occupies regions with different plasma-β and, therefore, may have different (EM-ES) properties, resulting in different heating rates within just one or two wavelengths.