StackShareStackShare
Follow on
StackShare

Discover and share technology stacks from companies around the world.

Follow on

© 2025 StackShare. All rights reserved.

Product

  • Stacks
  • Tools
  • Feed

Company

  • About
  • Contact

Legal

  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Service
  1. Stackups
  2. Application & Data
  3. Frameworks
  4. Front End Frameworks
  5. SwiftUI vs UIkIt

SwiftUI vs UIkIt

OverviewDecisionsComparisonAlternatives

Overview

UIkIt
UIkIt
Stacks791
Followers417
Votes262
GitHub Stars18.5K
Forks2.3K
SwiftUI
SwiftUI
Stacks590
Followers567
Votes6

SwiftUI vs UIkIt: What are the differences?

# Introduction
This comparison will highlight key differences between SwiftUI and UIKit.

1. **Declarative vs. Imperative Approach**: SwiftUI uses a declarative approach where you describe the desired result, and the framework handles the implementation details automatically. In contrast, UIKit follows an imperative approach where you have to explicitly define every step in the interface creation process.
   
2. **Cross-Platform Compatibility**: SwiftUI offers better support for cross-platform development by allowing you to write code that can run on iOS, macOS, watchOS, and tvOS. On the other hand, UIKit is primarily focused on iOS development, making it less suitable for cross-platform projects.

3. **Live Preview**: SwiftUI offers a live preview feature that allows you to see changes in the interface in real-time as you edit the code. This makes the development process more efficient and interactive compared to UIKit, where you have to compile and run the app to view the changes.

4. **Data Flow and State Management**: SwiftUI simplifies data flow and state management with features like @State, @Binding, and ObservableObject. These tools streamline the process of handling data changes and updates within the app, which can be more complex in UIKit with manual state management.

5. **UI Component Hierarchy**: SwiftUI introduces a new way of constructing user interfaces with a hierarchy of views using modifiers like VStack, HStack, and ZStack. This approach simplifies the layout and organization of UI components compared to UIKit's reliance on constraints and frames for layout.

6. **Backwards Compatibility**: While SwiftUI is the future of Apple's UI development, UIKit remains essential for maintaining compatibility with older iOS versions and integrating with existing codebases. This duality can lead to challenges in choosing the right framework for new projects or transitioning existing ones.

In Summary, SwiftUI and UIKit differ in their approach to UI development, cross-platform compatibility, live preview capabilities, data flow management, UI component hierarchy, and backwards compatibility.

Share your Stack

Help developers discover the tools you use. Get visibility for your team's tech choices and contribute to the community's knowledge.

View Docs
CLI (Node.js)
or
Manual

Advice on UIkIt, SwiftUI

Daniel
Daniel

Frontend Developer at atSistemas

Jun 10, 2020

Needs adviceonNew RelicNew RelicNext.jsNext.jsReactReact

I'm building, from scratch, a webapp. It's going to be a dashboard to check on our apps in New Relic and update the Apdex from the webapp. I have just chosen Next.js as our framework because we use React already, and after going through the tutorial, I just loved the latest changes they have implemented.

But we have to decide on a CSS framework for the UI. I'm partial to Bulma because I love that it's all about CSS (and you can use SCSS from the start), that it's rather lightweight and that it doesn't come with JavaScript clutter. One of the things I hate about Bootstrap is that you depend on jQuery to use the JavaScript part. My boss loves UIkIt, but when I've used it in the past, I didn't like it.

What do you think we should use? Maybe you have another suggestion?

1.07M views1.07M
Comments
Sai Karun
Sai Karun

Jan 30, 2020

Needs advice

We are re-modifying the existing portal to the new one. Looking out for a CSS framework where over-rides are possible, the performance of page loading, extendable, etc Please suggest between tailwind, UIkit and bootstrap frameworks explaining in detail on different factors. I request your help on the same.

595k views595k
Comments

Detailed Comparison

UIkIt
UIkIt
SwiftUI
SwiftUI

UIkit gives you a comprehensive collection of HTML, CSS, and JS components which is simple to use, easy to customize and extendable.

Provides views, controls, and layout structures for declaring your app's user interface. The framework provides event handlers for delivering taps, gestures, and other types of input to your app.

LESS - UIkit is developed in LESS to write well-structured, extendable code which is easy to maintain.;Components - A collection of small, responsive components using consistent and conflict-free naming conventions.;Customizer - UIkit's very basic style can be extended with themes and is easy to customize to create your own look.;Responsive - With the mobile-first approach UIkit provides a consistent experience from phones and tablets to desktops.
Declarative Syntax; Design Tools; Drag and drop; Dynamic replacement; Previews; Native on All Apple Platforms; Generate dynamic, interactive previews of your custom views; Define interactions from taps, clicks, and swipes to fine-grained gestures; Control and respond to the flow of data and changes within your app’s models; Integrate SwiftUI views into existing apps, and embed AppKit, UIKit, and WatchKit views and controllers into SwiftUI view hierarchies; Present your content onscreen and handle user interactions
Statistics
GitHub Stars
18.5K
GitHub Stars
-
GitHub Forks
2.3K
GitHub Forks
-
Stacks
791
Stacks
590
Followers
417
Followers
567
Votes
262
Votes
6
Pros & Cons
Pros
  • 39
    Complete GUI
  • 29
    Easy modify
  • 27
    Practical
  • 24
    Easy to learn
  • 24
    Functional
Pros
  • 2
    Live previews
  • 2
    XCode Canvas feature
  • 2
    Smaller Scalable views
Integrations
No integrations available
macOS
macOS
Swift
Swift
Xcode
Xcode

What are some alternatives to UIkIt, SwiftUI?

Bootstrap

Bootstrap

Bootstrap is the most popular HTML, CSS, and JS framework for developing responsive, mobile first projects on the web.

Foundation

Foundation

Foundation is the most advanced responsive front-end framework in the world. You can quickly prototype and build sites or apps that work on any kind of device with Foundation, which includes layout constructs (like a fully responsive grid), elements and best practices.

Semantic UI

Semantic UI

Semantic empowers designers and developers by creating a shared vocabulary for UI.

Materialize

Materialize

A CSS Framework based on material design.

Material Design for Angular

Material Design for Angular

Material Design is a specification for a unified system of visual, motion, and interaction design that adapts across different devices. Our goal is to deliver a lean, lightweight set of AngularJS-native UI elements that implement the material design system for use in Angular SPAs.

Material-UI

Material-UI

Material UI is a library of React UI components that implements Google's Material Design.

Blazor

Blazor

Blazor is a .NET web framework that runs in any browser. You author Blazor apps using C#/Razor and HTML.

Quasar Framework

Quasar Framework

Build responsive Single Page Apps, SSR Apps, PWAs, Hybrid Mobile Apps and Electron Apps, all using the same codebase!, powered with Vue.

Nuxt.js

Nuxt.js

Nuxt.js presets all the configuration needed to make your development of a Vue.js application enjoyable. You can use Nuxt.js for SSR, SPA, Static Generated, PWA and more.

Tailwind CSS

Tailwind CSS

Tailwind is different from frameworks like Bootstrap, Foundation, or Bulma in that it's not a UI kit. It doesn't have a default theme, and there are no build-in UI components. It comes with a menu of predesigned widgets to build your site with, but doesn't impose design decisions that are difficult to undo.

Related Comparisons

Bootstrap
Materialize

Bootstrap vs Materialize

Laravel
Django

Django vs Laravel vs Node.js

Bootstrap
Foundation

Bootstrap vs Foundation vs Material UI

Node.js
Spring Boot

Node.js vs Spring-Boot

Liquibase
Flyway

Flyway vs Liquibase