Since the release of Swift 6.0, the language has expanded beyond Apple's ecosystem with improved support for major operating systems, making it more viable to use Swift for resource-constrained applications. Traditionally, this space has been dominated by C, C++ and, more recently, Rust, due to their low-level control, high performance and availability of certified compilers and libraries that comply with standards such as MISRA, ISO 26262 and ASIL. While Rust has begun achieving similar certifications, Swift has yet to pursue this process, limiting its use in safety-critical applications.
Swift's growing adoption is driven by its balance of performance and safety features, including strong type safety and automatic reference counting for memory management. While Rust’s ownership model offers stronger memory safety guarantees, Swift provides a different trade-off that some developers find more approachable. Both Swift and Rust share the LLVM/Clang compiler backend, allowing advancements in one to benefit the other. With its ability to compile to optimized machine code, its open-source development and its expanding cross-platform support, Swift is emerging as a contender for a wider range of applications — far beyond its iOS roots.
