Swift Developers Choose Frameworks for Production: Survey Results

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Survey: Which Swift (iOS/macOS) Frameworks Are Used in Production

The Swift ecosystem continues to evolve rapidly, and choosing a framework for commercial development is becoming an increasingly important decision. To understand the real picture, we conducted a survey among iOS and macOS developers working on production projects. More than 800 specialists from Russia and the CIS took part in the survey. We share the key results.

Survey Methodology

Respondents were asked to select one or more frameworks that they actually used in commercial applications over the last 12 months. Both mobile (iOS) and desktop (macOS) projects, as well as server-side solutions in Swift, were taken into account.

Results: Top Swift Frameworks in Production

SwiftUI — 67% of respondents. The main choice for new projects. Developers note the speed of interface creation and integration with new Apple APIs (Widgets, Live Activities).
UIKit — 54% of respondents. Still relevant for supporting legacy code and projects requiring maximum customization or support for older iOS versions (up to 13.0).
Combine — 41% of respondents. Used for reactive programming, especially in conjunction with SwiftUI and MVVM architecture.
Vapor — 18% of respondents. A server-side framework in Swift that is gaining popularity for building backends for iOS applications and microservices.
AppKit — 12% of respondents. The main framework for commercial macOS applications, especially in niche products (video editors, developer tools).
SwiftNIO — 8% of respondents. Used for high-performance network applications (chat servers, proxies).

Trends and Surprising Findings

The survey revealed several interesting trends:

Growth of SwiftUI: over the past two years, the share of SwiftUI in production has grown from 42% to 67%. The main driver is the release of iOS 17 and macOS 14, where SwiftUI has become significantly more stable.
Moving away from third-party libraries: 23% of developers stated that they try to minimize dependencies and use built-in tools (SwiftUI + Combine + URLSession instead of RxSwift or Alamofire).
Server-side Swift: Vapor is actively used in startups for rapid prototyping, but in large enterprise projects it still lags behind Python (Django/FastAPI) and Go.

What Does This Mean for a Developer?

If you are just starting to learn Swift for commercial development, focusing on SwiftUI and Combine is the safest path. Nevertheless, UIKit remains a mandatory skill for supporting older projects. For those who want to stand out, mastering Vapor can become a competitive advantage in the full-stack iOS development market.

The full survey results, broken down by years of experience and application type (iOS/macOS/server), will be published in the next article. Stay tuned for updates!