iOS is one of the most sought-after mobile operating systems in the globe today. This means developers have to build apps to fulfill the requirements of iOS device users regularly. But the minute you try to create an app from scratch, the development process could become a back-breaking task. Why reinvent the wheel?
While keeping an eye on the modernization of the IT industry, we certainly could not overlook the arrival of Swift as a language. And it is no surprise that the use of libraries can save developers a handful of time. Github is such an open-source platform that offers a good number of Swift libraries.
10 Useful Swift Libraries On Github For iOS Development
Although robust on its own, Swift can always be upgraded with various frameworks and libraries. Generally, it starts with an iOS app development company not being able to or facing difficulties to do a particular thing and then discovering an innovative solution that others can utilize as well. This is how open-source Swift libraries are growing in numbers and becoming miscellaneous too.
Presented below is the list of 10 of the best Swift libraries you will find on Github that can make your iOS development game a lot easier!
1. Alamofire
With more than 4 thousand forks and 22 thousand stars on Github, Alamofire is a popular iOS library. According to the Reader's Choice Award, it has won the award of the best library of 2012.
Alamofire is a composable and elegant way to interface with HTTP networking. It provides a wide range of functionalities to developers such as JSON parameters, serpentine query and response techniques, authentication, and much more features. The library has other important components as well, two of them being Alamofire Network Activity Indicator and Alamofire Image.
Alamofire Image is an iOS UI library including custom image filters, UIImage, image response serializers, UIImageView extensions, etc. And with the help of the Alamofire Network Activity Indicator, you can manage the visibility indicator of network activity on iOS devices.
2. Carthage
For Mac and iOS, it's a decentralized dependency manager. If you didn't know, a dependency manager executes a stack of useful tasks and features. Their purpose is to simplify and equalize the process of choosing a third-party code and addition to your project, along with simplifying the update of third-party libraries. In addition, they help in selecting compatible versions of dependencies as well.
Carthage Swift library develops its dependency and prepares binary structures, but you can retain complete control over its configuration and structure. Especially, this library will not alter any app building options or files in your project. Apart from this, you can include dynamic frameworks in your project available for iOS 8 and higher.
3. Eureka
If your app has a range of forms, Eureka can help you save a handful of time. It has sections, rows, forms that make it super easy to write powerful table forms. Eureka is a very extensible and flexible Swift library that supports full customization for both individual and general.
It also uses Swift security type, so you can easily avoid mistakes during the development phase. With this tool, you can just write your code one time and literally reuse it everywhere. Power up your iOS app with the abstractions of Eureka!
4. RxSwift
As the name suggests, it’s the Swift version of Rx. This tool aims to enable easy and simple configuration of asynchronous operations and data or event streams. Such async operations, streams, and KVO observing are all brought together under the abstraction of sequence. This is why RxSwift is so simple, powerful, and refined.
This library has a sharper learning curve than the majority of the libraries you can add to your project. But once you get used to it, you'll be grateful that you got the hang of it and never look back. This tool has been developed for functional reactive programming and doesn't have any dependencies either.
5. Swifty JSON
You can use this open-source, third-party library to parse JSON content into your iOS application development services. Parsing through the JSONSerializationis method is not an easy task, and that's why this tool is intended to manage JSON data in Swift. Explicit types in Swift ensure that you don't commit any mistakes in a code so that the app doesn't have any issues.
Although, at times, while working with JSON, it becomes a bit difficult to deal with them. Thus, this library has been built to assist you by transforming a long code into a short one. Additionally, it works well with Alamofire and enables automatic unwrapping as well.
6. Moya
Like Alamofire, Moya Swift library copes with network-related issues. Placed at the top of the networking layer, it's an abstract class that developers usually handle. Using Moya, it's tremendously faster to get connected to the APIs, and the complex part of this is nearly done with its extensions, such as ModelMapper and RxSwift.
If you're using Moya, forget about the worry of how and where to put network affairs. In iOS application development services, special network layers are pretty common. Therefore in some instances, it becomes tough to create new apps, manage the existing ones, and write tests for them. So as you have conducted a specific setup, you'll find it really convenient to use Moya with easy access to APIs.
7. Perfect
Most of the latest apps have a client-server architecture, while iOS mobile developers only have access to the client's side. As an iOS developer library, Perfect has been created as an efficient toolkit and web server. Any iOS app development company that uses Swift programming language can use this library to create robust apps and different REST services.
There are two parts in Perfect: PerfectServer - an app with a moderately minimal interface and PerfectLib - a server library. These two elements are both open-source, and therefore, you can adjust them as per your needs.
8. SwiftLint
Based roughly on Github's Swift Style Guide, it's a tool containing a set of rules to implement Swift conventions and styles. This library adheres to SourceKit and Clang and gives you accurate results by utilizing an AST representation of your source files.
SwiftLint's list of rules is really extensive. If you want to keep track of practically everything in your well-maintained project, the list pretty much can cover them all. You also have the option to disable those rules per line or file, but you have to be careful and responsible for that. It has an auto-correction feature as well, meaning you can amend mistakes after the verification of the code.
9. Quick
Inspired by Ginkgo, RSpec, and Specta, Quick is a development framework driven by behavior. It has been created for BDD testing and works well on both Objective-C and Swift. It's well integrated with Nimble, a framework with extended data comparison capacities.
Quick offers a simple and easy language or a special syntax to decode examples and example groups. It's also used to test UIKit interactions effectively.
10. Snapkit
So far, Snapkit is the most popular Swift UI Layout library. It empowers iOS mobile developers to programmatically control auto-layout constraints with concisely crafted codes. This tool can help you simplify layout logic into the lowest number of code lines while securing readability and comprehension.
One particular advantage of the Snapkit open source project is its huge but effective iOS community. If you're stuck with the age-old question of "Should I set up UI programmatically or in storyboards?" Snapkit is the answer you have been searching for. With this tool, you can easily merge both ways without being concerned about complicated and messy codes.
In Summation!
So what's your take on our list? While there are many other iOS libraries to load your apps with tons of features and functionalities, these 10 can certainly steal the show for you. I highly recommend looking for an A-list iOS app development company to hire iOS app developers who can ease common iOS pain points for your next project with the help of these Swift libraries!
Till that, keep coding!
