Apple has officially launched swiftly 1.0, a version manager designed specifically for the Swift programming language to simplify the installation, management, and updating of Swift toolchains. This new release aims to streamline developers’ workflows by providing a straightforward way to handle multiple Swift versions on a single system.
Although swiftly has existed for several years as a community-supported project mainly used by Swift developers on Linux, the 1.0 release marks its transition into an officially supported component of the Swift ecosystem. Apple has moved the project into the Swift GitHub organization and expanded support to include macOS, making it easier for users to install Swift independently from the Xcode environment.
Swiftly offers a range of capabilities, including installing the standalone Swift toolchain, updating to the latest stable releases, and experimenting with nightly builds or older versions. Developed in Swift itself, the tool also facilitates switching between multiple installed Swift versions with ease. Additionally, developers can configure a project-specific Swift version by including a configuration file in the repository, ensuring consistency across development teams.
Comprehensive documentation is available at swift.org, where swiftly leverages the Swift OpenAPI plugin to interact with the website and fetch the latest Swift releases automatically. Initially, swiftly supports macOS and popular Linux distributions like Ubuntu, Debian, Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and Fedora. Apple plans for swiftly to become the default method for installing Swift outside of Xcode, further enhancing the developer experience.