SWIFT VS FLUTTER: IOS

**Swift** is a fast and safe programming language developed by Apple Inc. for building iOS apps with native tools. It incorporates ideas from Objective-C and other languages. On June 2, 2014, the Apple Worldwide Developers Conference application became the first publicly released app written in Swift.

**Flutter** is an open-source, multi-platform framework created by Google for developing both iOS and Android apps. The first version of Flutter, initially codenamed “Sky,” was designed to run on the Android operating system. On December 4, 2018, Flutter 1.0 was officially released at the Flutter Live Event, marking the framework’s first stable version.

The comparable features that both the programming languages possess include:

• Onboarding Process:

Flutter uses the Dart programming language, while Swift uses Objective-C. To develop iOS apps with Swift, you need Xcode as the IDE, and it requires a macOS machine with Xcode installed. For Flutter development, you need both Xcode and the Flutter binary installed.

• Profiling:

Profiling is a dynamic analysis process used to measure memory usage, resource consumption, and other performance factors of applications. Both Flutter and Swift provide robust support for profiling:

• Accessibility:

Swift includes built-in accessibility features through the UIKit framework, so there is no need to import additional frameworks to enable accessibility. In contrast, Flutter lacks mature, built-in support for accessibility features. For Flutter apps, you can use Xcode’s Accessibility Inspector tool to help with accessibility testing and improvements.

• Application Size:

Swift apps are packaged in the .app format, and the application binary typically has a size of around 23.2MB. The app artifact can be obtained from the CI server. In contrast, Flutter apps are generated in the build/iOS/debug-iphoneos directory, where the application binary is approximately 52.4MB.

• Build Time:

Flutter apps generally take longer to clean builds compared to Swift apps. For Swift or native apps, build times can be measured using Xcode or the Xcode command line tools. On average, a Swift app takes about 13 seconds for a clean build, whereas Flutter apps, when built in debug mode, typically take approximately 30 to 45 seconds for a clean build.

• Reloading:

When developing an iOS app with Swift, code changes require rebuilding the app to see the updates reflected on the device. This process is known as reloading.

In contrast, Flutter offers a **hot reload** feature, which allows developers to make code changes and instantly see those changes reflected in the app without requiring a full rebuild. This significantly speeds up the development process and enhances productivity.

• Building on CI Server

Building iOS apps can vary on local machines depending on their configuration, such as RAM and disk size. Swift, available on GitHub, requires logging into Nevercode using GitHub credentials for continuous integration. In contrast, Flutter uses Codemagic as its official CI/CD solution for building and deploying apps.

• Testing Support:

Swift provides the XCTest framework for unit, integration, performance, and UI testing of iOS apps. However, XCTest lacks some features such as data-driven testing and test grouping, which are available in XUnit frameworks like JUnit.

On the other hand, Flutter offers a comprehensive testing framework that covers unit, functional, and UI testing. One of its standout features is widget testing, which allows developers to run UI tests on individual widgets. Flutter also provides a separate package, Flutter Driver, to facilitate and drive these UI tests.