Material
A Swift UI framework for iOS apps with Material Design-style components and animations.
- Stars
- 12k
- Forks
- 1.3k
- Licence
- MIT
- Language
- Swift
- Last update
- 4.5 years ago
- Type
- Library
No commits in over a year — check for forks or alternatives before adopting.
What it is
Material is a UI/UX framework for building iOS apps in Swift. It provides ready-made interface components such as cards, text fields, navigation drawers, toolbars, and floating action menus, styled after Google's Material Design look. It also uses the separate Motion library to handle animations and transitions.
- Add a navigation drawer that slides in from the left or right
- Build cards with a toolbar, image area, and content area
- Create text fields with placeholders and hint text
- Add a floating action button menu and snackbar messages
Great for
- iOS developers who want Material Design-style components without building them from scratch
- Developers maintaining existing Swift projects that already use Material
- Projects that need Material's card, text field, or navigation drawer components
Not ideal for
- Teams starting a new app today, since the README lists iOS 8.0+ and Swift 4.0+ and the last push was in May 2022
- Android or cross-platform projects, since this is iOS-only
- Developers who need SwiftUI support, which the README does not mention
How to get it
- 1
Install with a package manager
You'll need: Xcode · CocoaPods (gem install cocoapods) or Carthage (Homebrew)
Install CocoaPods
gem install cocoapodsInstall the pod (after adding pod 'Material', '~> 3.1.0' to your Podfile)
pod install - 2
Run it
- Add pod 'Material', '~> 3.1.0' to your Podfile under platform :ios, '8.0' and use_frameworks!
- Run pod install in the project folder
- Open the generated .xcworkspace in Xcode
- Import Material in a Swift file and add a component such as a Card or TextField, following the linked sample project
- 3
Get the most out of it
- Start from the Photos sample project to see components used together
- Use the Motion library for animations, since Material's animation system is built on it
- Review the CHANGELOG.md before updating versions, as the README recommends
- Try the Material Colors app or MaterialColor.com to pick a color palette
Downloads
Strengths
- Covers many common components (cards, drawers, tabs, search bar, snackbar) in one package
- Includes sample projects in a separate repository to learn from
- MIT license permits use in commercial projects
Trade-offs
- The README targets old tooling (iOS 8.0+, Xcode 8.0+) and the last push is from 2022
- Documentation is mostly sample links and GIFs; the README gives little API detail
- The latest release lists no binaries, so you install through a dependency manager or by copying source
How it compares
| Project | Stars | Type | Level | Updated | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Material (this) | 12k | Library | intermediate | 4.5 years ago | iOS developers who want Material Design-style components without building them from scratch |
| SnapKit | 20.3k | Library | intermediate | 4 months ago | Swift developers building UIKit or AppKit interfaces in code rather than Interface Builder |
| motion | 34.8k | Library | intermediate | 4 days ago | React developers who want to animate components with a simple API |
| animated-tab-bar | 11.1k | Library | intermediate | 4.8 years ago | iOS developers who want animated tab bar icons without writing the animation logic from scratch |
| folding-cell | 10.2k | Library | intermediate | 2.5 years ago | iOS developers building list screens with expandable items |
| Hero | 22.5k | Library | intermediate | 1.8 years ago | iOS developers who want custom screen transitions without writing UIKit animation code by hand |
Stats synced from GitHub. The assessment above was drafted with AI from the project's README on 2026-10-29 and may miss recent changes — check the README before relying on a command. MIT licence: free to use, modify and distribute, including commercially, as long as you keep the copyright notice.