Introducing AloeStackView for iOS
Article Summary
Marli Oshlack from Airbnb reveals how they slashed iOS screen development time from weeks to hours. The secret? Rethinking the entire approach to UI layout.
Airbnb faced a scaling problem: adding 260+ screens to their iOS app in a year, with each screen taking days or weeks to build. Their engineering team developed AloeStackView, an open-source alternative to UITableView that prioritizes speed and simplicity over view recycling.
Key Takeaways
- Used in nearly 200 Airbnb iOS screens since 2016
- Eliminates common UITableView bugs by removing reloadData and view recycling
- Under 500 lines of code with zero external dependencies
- Best for screens with less than two screenfuls of content
- Leverages UIStackView + UIScrollView with Auto Layout for automatic UI updates
AloeStackView trades view recycling for a dramatically simpler, safer API that lets engineers build iOS screens in minutes instead of days.
About This Article
Airbnb's iOS team found that building new screens took multiple days or weeks. As the app grew and needed hundreds of new screens each year, this became a real bottleneck.
Marli Oshlack's team created AloeStackView by nesting UIStackView inside UIScrollView and using Auto Layout. This let developers hold strong references to views and change properties on the fly without needing complex recycling logic.
AloeStackView cut screen development time down to minutes or hours instead of days or weeks. The library now powers nearly 200 screens in the Airbnb iOS app. The codebase is just 500 lines and has no external dependencies.