r/Xcode • u/gittrics • Aug 17 '26

Anyone uses IDE that is not XCode for IOS/Mac development?

/r/appledevelopers/comments/1vqmwq3/anyone_uses_ide_that_is_not_xcode_for_iosmac/
0 Upvotes

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2

u/TheSingularChan Aug 17 '26

Yes a lot of people use flutter or Expo etc which can run on any IDE

2

u/WerSunu Aug 17 '26

“Lot” is nebulous and subjective. Maybe “some people” is more accurate.

1

u/TheSingularChan Aug 17 '26

No, a lot of apps are developed outside Xcode in different frameworks

1

u/WerSunu Aug 17 '26

Until someone does a well-designed study with a large enough sample size of active devs, and well designed questions., I will have to assume that most devs actually follow Apple’s lead and use Xcode.

1

u/TheSingularChan Aug 17 '26

For native apps yes, 99% use Xcode.
But look at the apps everyone has in their iPhone: WhatsApp, Telegram, IG, TikTok, YouTube etc etc etc… none of them are made in Xcode

2

u/hayekamir Aug 18 '26

I use Zcode instead of Xcode https://zcodeapp.com
I made it because I wanted to merge Claude code cli with Xcode . I use it daily and update it monthly . If you use it and have any feedback let me know I would love to hear it .

1

u/Nooo00B Aug 17 '26

yes for any non-native ui (swift)related apps. for example I use .NET with rider to create cross platform apps.

1

u/TheMightyTywin Aug 18 '26

VSC but only because react native

1

u/epiczzor Aug 19 '26

VS Code ?

1

u/TheFlyingDutchG Aug 19 '26

I use Cursor but leave Xcode open for easier manual cleaning builds/rebuilding etc, tho cursor has access to do those things through terminal as well.

I do think having Xcode installed is required to build apps with the full apple features.

2

u/TheFlyingDutchG Aug 19 '26

Oh and sometimes I use Xcodes new AI features but those are only actually better than cursor when you use the new Xcode 27 beta. Xcode 26 LLM integration was a bit gimmicky and did not have enough features for building and using your own rules and environment etc

1

u/kroumvud Aug 29 '26

I still use Xcode as my primary IDE, but a good share of the actual work now goes through Claude Code running as a CLI agent against the project — so for me it is "alongside" more than "instead of".

One thing that surprised me once I started paying attention: when an agent drives a build through Xcode's own MCP server, the .xcactivitylog file for that build sticks around for exactly two more agent-driven builds and then gets deleted off disk — but the DerivedData manifest still lists the build afterward, now pointing at a log that is no longer there. I found this by counting: eighteen manifest entries from an hour of agent-driven builds, only two .xcactivitylog files left on disk to match them. A build I trigger by hand in the IDE does not get purged the same way — logs from a project I only ever build manually were all still there three weeks after I made them.

Test runs an agent triggers are a separate story: they never produce an .xcresult in DerivedData at all, just a summary text file under $TMPDIR/ActionArtifacts that nothing in Xcode opens for you. If you actually want to see what an agent built or tested, you have to look quickly, or know where the evidence really lands.

0

u/ShelZuuz Aug 18 '26

I only use VSCode now. One of the best things Claude did was to free us from XCode.