Apple has officially introduced Swiftly 1.0, a new version manager designed to simplify the installation, management, and updating of the Swift programming language toolchain. Announced on March 28, Swiftly 1.0 is a significant development for Swift developers, particularly for those working outside of the Xcode environment. While the Swiftly tool had been available in a community-supported form for Linux users, the 1.0 release officially integrates it into the core Swift toolchain, now hosted within the Swift GitHub organization.
Previously, developers using Swift on Linux were limited to community-driven versions of Swiftly, but the 1.0 version now extends official support to macOS, bringing new functionality for managing Swift installations on both platforms. This makes it much easier for developers to install and update Swift independently from Xcode, which has historically been the primary environment for Swift development on macOS. Swiftly aims to streamline the process of setting up Swift across different systems, ensuring that developers have access to the latest versions with minimal effort.
Swiftly provides a range of commands that allow developers to install the standalone Swift toolchain, update to the latest stable version, or even experiment with nightly builds or older Swift versions. The tool is written in Swift, ensuring that it aligns closely with the language it manages. One of its key features is the ability to seamlessly switch between multiple toolchain versions, allowing developers to easily test and use different Swift versions depending on the needs of a project. Furthermore, by adding a configuration file to a project repository, teams can standardize the Swift version across all developers, ensuring consistency and avoiding versioning conflicts.
The introduction of Swiftly 1.0 reflects Apple’s commitment to improving the development experience for Swift programmers, especially those working in diverse environments beyond Xcode. As the tool matures, it is expected to become the default method for installing Swift outside of Xcode. Currently, Swiftly supports macOS and major Linux distributions such as Ubuntu, Debian, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Fedora. For detailed documentation and guidance on using Swiftly, developers can refer to the swift.org website.