Xcode - the obvious choice for Apple ecosphere application development
Updated October 31, 2025

Xcode - the obvious choice for Apple ecosphere application development

Bruce Carter | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Xcode

Xcode is the primary (and only) IDE that we use for macOS and iOS application development as well as scripts and stand-alone Unix binaries. Xcode is produced and supported by Apple and therefore is the premiere IDE for application development in the Apple ecosphere. We also deploy Xcode in the library and in certain labs for programming courses. Usage audience is developers and students.

Pros

  • Immediate implementation and integration with new features
  • Code completion
  • AI code suggestion
  • Comprehensive options for builds
  • Workflow customization
  • Since it is Apple's tool, problems get fixed quickly

Cons

  • Documentation
  • Number of settings can be overwhelming
  • Embedded help for settings and configuration
  • Templates
  • Collaboration
  • Managing of credentials (although this has recently gotten better)
  • Xcode is free, and is supported at low cost by individual or organizational membership
  • There are a lot of free resources available, which is particularly important to students and independent developers
  • Since producing apps is not a core business function of the university, it is difficult to provide direct bottom-line tangible benefits, but frequently programming students come in with a basic understanding of Xcode already in place, which saves class time
  • Producing standard structured code from a standard IDE makes it easier for sharing code with peer institutions
  • Students expect to have university branded "helper" apps available, and Xcode makes it fairly easy to transport code from one contractor to another
  • No negative impacts are immediately evident other than familiarization time with the IDE can be high if you try to know what everything does
Xcode occasionally exhibits some behaviors that are hard to explain, but are generally cleared by restarting the program. In an application this large and complex, I suppose this is somewhat expected. The sheer vastness of the frameworks collection has to be a huge management issue all by itself. However, those breaks in the flow can have impact on developer productivity.
Xcode is the clear choice in general circumstances in Apple echosphere application development (for instance, not for Java or web programming necessarily) primarily due to the fact that it is Apple's in-house tool. It received a lot of attention and is used by a huge audience of developers. It has the advantage of being free, heavily supported by Apple, tightly tied to OS and hardware changes, and benefits from significant Apple Intelligence enhancements in the latest version.

Do you think Xcode delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Xcode's feature set?

Yes

Did Xcode live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Xcode go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Xcode again?

Yes

This is almost not a case of Xcode being the 300-pound gorilla in the space, but of it being essentially the ONLY viable gorilla in the space. There are other text editors, of course, that can be used for coding; and in some cases other IDE's might make sense for a cross-platform development scenario, but since this is Apple's in-house tool, fighting against that flow is just going to be an exercise in frustration. And, if you need help from Developer Support, they are going to be most familiar with Xcode.

Evaluating Xcode and Competitors

  • Scalability
  • Integration with Other Systems
  • Ease of Use
  • Other
The most significant factor was that this is Apple's in-house tool, and therefore receives a lot of attention from Apple Engineering, both for bug fixes as well as new feature integration. There are always presentations at the annual WWDC conference regarding changes and new features in Xcode, given by the engineers and developers inside Apple who are responsible for the product.
Probably would not change much of anything. It was essentially a foregone conclusion that this was the tool that would be selected when we decided to support this development activity for staff, faculty, and students. The gap between Xcode and the other IDE's that are not situationally or language specific is fairly large, and trying to wedge in another third party IDE would just have introduced more friction into the process.

Using Xcode

ProsCons
Like to use
Relatively simple
Easy to use
Technical support not required
Well integrated
Consistent
Quick to learn
Convenient
Feel confident using
Familiar
None
  • Code completion
  • AI integration
  • Compilation
  • Framework management
  • Understanding what the large set of options in the system do
  • Certificate management (although this has improved)
  • Finding a particular setting

Xcode Reliability

Xcode only loses points due to the occasional situation where it manages to somehow tie itself into a knot and starts to exhibit odd symptoms. This is almost always solved by simply saving progress and restarting the environment. Fortunately, that doesn't happen too frequently and is easily repaired while taking a short break to walk around and stretch.
Since we don't use the cloud based features of Xcode, it is basically available 24/7 for us. We don't need the extended compilation features that are offered in the cloud as our projects to this point have not been that large or complex. We have never seen a wholesale breakdown of Xcode availability at any point in our use of the product.
Every developer wants faster compiles, but that can be achieved by either going to the cloud or by provisioning the local station to a higher powered configuration. My only minor complaint is the amount of local mass storage that Xcode as a system consumes. This makes it interesting to set up a development environment on a midrange laptop, however it is easily managed with external storage at a reasonable price.

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