I’m exploring macOS development, comparing Mac Catalyst apps vs native AppKit/SwiftUI apps.
Any insights are much appreciated — I’m trying to understand when Catalyst is sufficient and when going native is worth the extra effort.
According to Apple's Mac Catalyst documentation, the purpose of Mac Catalyst is to create a Mac version of an iPad app.
Do you have an existing iPad app that you want to port to Mac? If the answer is Yes, using Mac Catalyst will make porting easier than creating a Mac version with AppKit or SwiftUI. However, Apple Silicon Macs can run iPad apps so you can get a Mac version of the app without using Mac Catalyst.
If the answer to last paragraph's question is No, you are better off creating a multi-platform SwiftUI app project to make an app that runs on iOS and Mac.
Thank you @szymczyk!
I plan on making a multi-platform app. Can you elaborate on why would I would be better off to make a dedicated macOS app versus an iPad app and porting it via Catalyst for Mac?
The reason I ask this is because I've seen many developers take that route, skipping developing a dedicated Mac app entirely and just use Catalyst. For example Apple themselves with:
All these are apps that are built with Catalyst. And many third party developers are choosing Catalyst for their Mac apps as well, like Ivory, IceCubes, Craft app.
I believe they are probably taking that route for convenience and faster development. I'm not sure if they are missing anything crucial that would require a dedicated macOS app, these apps make me think that Catalyst seems fairly mature in 2026... which is why I ask this.
I am not an Apple employee, but there's a good chance most of the Apple apps you mentioned use Mac Catalyst because they were originally written for iOS with UIKit. Porting a UIKit app using Mac Catalyst is going to be faster than writing a Mac version from scratch.
I don't see the advantage of using Mac Catalyst for a new SwiftUI app project. SwiftUI supports both iOS and Mac so you can share a lot of the same code and provide a native Mac experience. If you don't want to provide a native Mac experience, you can avoid Mac Catalyst, make an iOS app, and let people with Apple Silicon Macs run the iPad version.
I have never used Mac Catalyst so I can't tell you how mature it is.
