head to head · open source
Appwrite vs swift-build
Appwrite has 57,404 GitHub stars, 5,727 forks, 1,008 open issues and last shipped today. swift-build has 2,240 stars, 216 forks, 139 open issues and last shipped yesterday. Appwrite leads on adoption by 2,463% (57,404 vs 2,240 stars). Appwrite is written in PHP under BSD-3-Clause; swift-build is written in Swift under Apache-2.0. Appwrite has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, swift-build 10%. Appwrite was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| Appwrite | swift-build | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 57K | ★ 2.2K |
| License | BSD-3-Clause | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | PHP | Swift |
| Last push | 2026-09-18 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 5.7K | ⑂ 216 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick Appwrite if
- You weight community size — 57K stars and counting
- You want the BSD-3-Clause license terms
- Your stack matches PHP
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick swift-build if
- You want the swift-build feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Swift
- You evaluated both and swift-build fits your workflow better
About Appwrite
Appwrite is an open source backend platform that consolidates infrastructure services—authentication, databases, storage, functions, messaging, hosting, and real time capabilities—into a single, unified system. It runs as a self hosted service or via a managed cloud offering (Appwrite Cloud), targeting developers who want to avoid assembling and maintaining disparate backend tools.
read the full Appwrite overview →
About swift-build
Swift Build ======= Swift Build is a high level build system based on llbuild with great support for building Swift. It is used by SwiftPM, Xcode, and Swift Playground. Usage With SwiftPM Swift Build is the default SwiftPM build system in nightly snapshots of Swift's main branches. In Swift 6.2 and 6.3, it can be enabled by passing build system swiftbuild . When building SwiftPM from source it will be built as a package dependency. When checking out the full set of Swift repositories, SWIFTCI USE LOCAL DEPS=1 swift build package path /path/to/swiftpm can be used to test local changes to Swift Build and SwiftPM to…
read the full swift-build overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is Appwrite or swift-build more popular?
Appwrite has 57,404 GitHub stars and swift-build has 2,240. Appwrite has the larger community by that measure.
Are Appwrite and swift-build free?
Both are open source. Appwrite is licensed under BSD-3-Clause and swift-build under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between Appwrite and swift-build?
Appwrite is written in PHP and swift-build in Swift. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, Appwrite or swift-build?
Choose Appwrite if you want the larger community (57,404 stars) or its BSD-3-Clause licence terms. Choose swift-build if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.