Swift Package Manager
Ranked 23 of 35 package managers by recommenders
Apple's built-in package manager for Swift, praised for simplicity, team use and mixing languages; critics cite rough Xcode integration and slow builds.
Apple's built-in package manager for Swift, praised for simplicity, team use and mixing languages; critics cite rough Xcode integration and slow builds.
21 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 11
- criticize it
- 10
- approval share
- 52%
Recommended in 8 of 13 months
- November 2025: recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 11 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 1.1 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 8 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Simple and workable for teams
“keeps things simple and working with multiple people is much more a breeze this way”
Comment from 14 Jul 2026 in “Building and Shipping Mac and iOS Apps Without Ever Opening Xcode” “most people seem to get on well with it”
Comment from 1 Feb 2026 in “Swift is a more convenient Rust” Modular packages across apps
“write the bulk of your app as an SPM package using your editor of choice”
Comment from 3 May 2026 in “Ask HN: Those building Swift apps without touching Xcode, what is your workflow?” “break out all of your code into SPM packages/targets”
Comment from 4 Feb 2026 in “Xcode 26.3 unlocks the power of agentic coding” Handles mixed languages and Android
“I'd much rather go the other direction and use Swift Package Manager and the associated toolchain on Android.”
Comment from 10 Sep 2026 in “Shopify is moving from React Native back to Swift and Kotlin” “handles Swift, ObjC, C, C++ in the same project”
Comment from 23 Jan 2026 in “Improving the usability of C libraries in Swift”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Rough edges and Xcode friction
“I like the SPM, but it definitely has its "rough edges."”
Comment from 23 Jun 2026 in “Swift Package Index Joins Apple” “Things Go Wrong all the time when trying to replace parts while driving, and there's very little visibility or control over the interactions between SPM and Xcode.”
Comment from 26 Mar 2026 in “Swift 6.3 Released” “Swift Packages (especially CLIs) doesn't always feel great”
Comment from 14 Jan 2026 in “The Unbearable Frustration of Figuring Out APIs” - Comment from 31 Jan 2026 in “Swift is a more convenient Rust”
Builds fail or run slowly
“"won’t build if the product / target has the same name as one of its classes" is absolutely ridiculous”
Comment from 1 Feb 2026 in “Swift is a more convenient Rust” “The only solutions for fast builds are to stop using SPM”
Comment from 21 Jan 2026 in “Skip Is Now Free and Open Source”
Other package managers people recommend
The four most recommended other package managers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 35 package managers, rankedWhat people said
23 of the 24 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“supposedly Swift Package Manager is actually replacing CocoaPods now”
“I'd much rather go the other direction and use Swift Package Manager and the associated toolchain on Android.”
“there's a noticeable absence of supply chain attacks involving SPM”
“swift build -c release and you're done”
“SwiftPM will make a complete clone of the whole repo, so all your users will have to download the whole monorepo.”
“keeps things simple and working with multiple people is much more a breeze this way”
“I like the SPM, but it definitely has its "rough edges."”
“It bugs me that Swift deprecates the concept of specifying exact versions”
“write the bulk of your app as an SPM package using your editor of choice”
“Package introspection fails with an error that there are other swiftpm processes running when there aren't”
“Things Go Wrong all the time when trying to replace parts while driving, and there's very little visibility or control over the interactions between SPM and Xcode.”
“break out all of your code into SPM packages/targets”
“Swift package management is a cryptic mess”
“SPM is also better with the newer version”
“"won’t build if the product / target has the same name as one of its classes" is absolutely ridiculous”
“fully enraging when you have a slightly divergent use case”
“SPM can't use vcpkg packages or call CMake stuff”
“most people seem to get on well with it”
“SPM and Xcode have such a rough time with multiple targets”
“handles Swift, ObjC, C, C++ in the same project”
“The only solutions for fast builds are to stop using SPM”
“Swift Packages (especially CLIs) doesn't always feel great”
“it's been rare for either toolchain or library upgrades to cause any sort of problem”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.