Twitter Space on Storage options on iOS

This Twitter Space Stefan and I share some thoughts on what options you have in storing data on a device and in the cloud on/from iOS.

1. What is the goal of this space?

We won’t give you exact recommendations, storage is highly dependent on maaaany factors!

• Type of data to be stored (e.g. Booleans, Strings, Images, Large objects)
• Volume of data to be stored (e.g. settings options, notes app that saves users notes, offline backup for social network data)
• Needs to work offline?
• Sensitive data (encryption, data privacy, GDPR)
• Backed up?

2. What local options are there?

• UserDefaults
  • Most basic option for small settings data (recommended use from Apple)
  • Optimised for UIKit + SwiftUI
  • Only locally available
• Simple local file (e.g. Text, JSON)
  • More freedom to use a structure you want
  • More risks because you have to handle all by yourself
• Local database (e.g. SQLite)
  • provides more powerful options for querying, etc.
  • there are wrappers around it / libraries for easier usage
  • you have to know what you’re doing
• CoreData
  • most powerful local option
  • can have a steep learning curve
  • gives you a lot of power and flexibility

3. What online options are there?

• CloudKit
  • Apple’s cross-platform solution
    • can but does not have to be used with CoreData
  • Stefan: planning to use it for a side-project but haven’t used it before
  • great to sync data between user’s devices: iOS/tvOS/iPadOS/macOS/watchOS
  • limitation: only Apple ecosystem
  • mixing reports: some people had syncing issues some didn’t
• Firebase / Realm / AWS Amplify / Azure probably has a solution as well
  • necessary for apps with collaborative features (or maybe as a convenience for account-functionality)
  • platform-agnostic
    • share data between iOS/Android/Windows/Mac/Web
  • be aware of something called “vendor lock-in”
  • pricing is something to keep track of
    • there are horrible stories of people having incredibly high bills because of loops/bugs they had in their code
  • you give up control for convenience
    • not a bad thing but important to keep in mind
• Self-hosted via AWS / Google Cloud / Azure / Supabase / Roll your own solution

4. Some recommendations

• Start small and work your way up
• There are a lot of options out there, so not easy to find the correct one, but what helps is:
  • Think about the type of data you want to store
  • When does it need to be available (online vs. offline)
  • How secure does the data need to be stored?

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