I’m looking to work on Swift projects but I’m on a Windows machine. I know Xcode is the go-to IDE for Swift, but that’s macOS-exclusive. Does anyone know if there are any Swift IDEs or development environments that can run on Windows?
I’ve been dabbling in cross-platform dev for about 4 years, and yeah—there’s no official Swift IDE for Windows. But you can get started with Swift for Windows. It’s pretty minimal, but it does let you write and compile Swift code natively. Not quite Xcode, but it gets the job done for basic stuff. For something more powerful, cloud setups like Replit or GitHub Codespaces are worth a shot.
Right, and just to build on what @klyni_gg said, I’ve tried a few setups during my Swift learning phase. While there’s still no official Swift IDE for Windows, you can use Visual Studio Code with Swift extensions. You’ll need to install Swift manually, but once it’s up, you’ll get syntax highlighting, code completion, and even some level of debugging. It’s lighter than Xcode, but surprisingly flexible if you’re just coding logic or learning the language.
Exactly. To add another layer to that, I’ve used Swift in more advanced dev setups, and if you’re comfortable getting hands-on, using WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) is a solid option. It’s not a plug-and-play Swift IDE for Windows, but it gets you closer to a true dev environment. Pair it with VS Code and you’ll have access to real Swift tooling, package managers, and command-line compiling—just like a Unix-based system. IBM’s old Swift Sandbox is gone, but WSL fills that gap well if you want more control.