# UIKit

21 Hacker News commenters recommended UIKit and 3 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 9 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** Mature, stable Apple framework for complex, performant interfaces with Auto Layout. Critics find the API clunky and say Apple is favoring SwiftUI.

## Why people recommend it

- Seen as better than SwiftUI (5 comments): "I find the UIKit code I get, is a lot more robust and performant, than the SwiftUI code." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48277766)) "it is a huge step backwards in dev-ex from autolayout and UIKit" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49161861)) "If you've used UIKit to any large degree, how bad SwiftUI is" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48175376))
- Robust, performant for complex interfaces (4 comments): "good old UIKit based on MVC (Model-View-Controller) is simply excellent for building scalable, complex and performant UI's" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49172793)) "I find the UIKit code I get, is a lot more robust and performant, than the SwiftUI code." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48277766)) "large collections of thumbnails that fetch asynchronously? Use UIKit." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49151140))
- Mature, stable, feature complete (3 comments): "UIKit which is most stable and feature complete" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49147845)) "nearly all needs are pretty well covered" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46034207)) "UIkit still exists and is usable." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46574464))
- Auto Layout handles nearly any design (2 comments): "I find UIKit to be a pain, but with it, and Autolayout, I can do almost anything." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49409504)) "I never had issues doing any design thrown at me using AppKit, UIKit or SwiftUI." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48592293))

## What people warn about

- Clunky API, view controllers, constraints (3 comments): "if you just fix some of the worst API’s, like embedding ViewControllers and adding constraints in code" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49156649)) "cleaning up some of the UIKit syntanx and framework (simplifying it)" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49152061)) "UIKit etc never made sense to me after years" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47236864))
- Apple's focus shifted to SwiftUI (3 comments): "I wished apple just made it as a Template Rendering framework, and integrated wit with UIKit, and just modernized UIKit a bit." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49152229)) "But just imagine if they'd spent this time making them easy in UIKit." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49159596)) "the dual replacement of UIKit and AppKit with SwiftUI" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48932548))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Qt](https://hackerapproved.com/p/qt.md): 191 recommend
- [GTK](https://hackerapproved.com/p/gtk.md): 85 recommend
- [Windows Forms](https://hackerapproved.com/p/winforms.md): 76 recommend
- [SwiftUI](https://hackerapproved.com/p/swiftui.md): 75 recommend
- [Tcl/Tk](https://hackerapproved.com/p/tcl-tk.md): 61 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "UIKit", https://hackerapproved.com/p/uikit/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).