9/28/2016

Core Data vs. Realm - Ted Bendixson iOS Developer

CoreDatavs.Realm
by Ted Bendixson | May 30, 2016 | Technologies and Frameworks | 0 comments

If youve done any kind of iOS development lately, youve run into a decision we all need
to make at some point how am I going to implement object persistence? For years and
years, the only options you had were SQLLite and CoreData. Most people went with
CoreData because it had less boilerplate code compared to SQLLite. By comparison it
was also easier to setup.
Now theres a new player in the game, and it o ers similar improvements to your iOS
development experience. Realm is a mobile database solution that promises even less
boilerplate code, easier migrations, and a learning curve that isnt so steep. Does it live
up to its promises? What are the pros and cons of adopting Realm compared to other
totally ne data persistence frameworks?
As a developer who is accustomed to favoring Apples frameworks over others, it
generally feels strange to step out of the walled garden and work with a third party
framework for such a generic thing that all apps need. After all, CoreData has been
around for a long time. It has been battle tested in millions upon millions of
applications. If were going to leave the walled garden, there had better be a darn good
reason to do so. At the very least, we might want some evidence that the walled garden
is in a state of decay and our true paradise lies elsewhere.
To drop CoreData and go with Realm is an exercise in trust. You are trusting that a third
party can do a better job than Apple itself. You are buying into the assumption that
Apple hasnt done such a great job of innovating within the realm of object persistence
(pun intended). In the long term, you believe said third-party will still exist in a few years
time when your app and its database will likely need support and maintenance.
Fundamentally, you accept the premise that Apple has failed to keep pace with current
trends in mobile database architecture, and a third party can do a better job of carrying
that ag forward.
Would you be correct in accepting that premise? Considering the recent decline in the
overall quality of Apples software, its no surprise so many developers are ditching
CoreData. Apple has its hands in a lot of di erent places and their limited development
team is under constant pressure to keep rolling out new public-facing features every
year. Theyve done all of this while inventing a totally new programming language that
paves the way for the next era of programming. If theyve been a little lax in
investigating what they could do to make CoreData better for developers, it would be no
shock.
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Core Data vs. Realm - Ted Bendixson iOS Developer

TLDR; Core Data is old. It hasnt changed that much recently. Its still based on SQLLite,
which was super hot in 2000 but has since been surpassed by faster tools. Compared to
Realm, CoreData feels heavy, and for most simple uses CoreData feels like bringing a
machine gun to a st ght.
But how much better is Realm? Is it that much easier to setup? Does it fully escape the
constraints imposed by CoreData, or does it follow in CoreDatas footsteps too much?
How much faster is it? To what extent can it help us avoid the most time-consuming
problems that relate to persistence, things like multi-threading and migration? We
should endeavor to investigate each of these questions in detail.
Claim: Realm is easier to setup. It requires less boilerplate code. True or False?
True. Although Apple does go to great lengths to help you avoid writing much of the
necessary boilerplate code to setup CoreData, said boilerplate code is still required. You
still need the various CoreData related functions in your AppDelegate, which are
generally easy to add if youre starting a project from scratch but a bit harder to add
when you want to bring persistence to an existing project. As a developer, this forces
you to make some pretty big decisions about persistence right out of the gate, decisions
that add weight to starting up a project.

When you check Use Core Data, Apple writes most of the boiler-plate code for
you.
On top of this, you need to support XCDataModel les when you opt to go with
CoreData. Its not exactly boilerplate code, but its an extra le you need to modify just
to add a single persistence-backed entity. Realm does away with all of this. With Realm,
you simply install the cocoapod and subclass RLMObject. Theres no doubt about it.
Theres de nitely less setup time.

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9/28/2016

Core Data vs. Realm - Ted Bendixson iOS Developer

Claim: Realm requires less code overall. True or False?

True, especially when you include the boilerplate code you need to setup
NSManagedObject contexts. A side-by-side comparison of a simple fetch request shows
that Realm can accomplish in three lines of code what Core Data does in several.

Claim: Realm is easier to work with in multithreaded situations. True or False?

Mostly true, although it should be said that both are kind of a pain when it comes to
multithreading. With CoreData, you have to manage a bunch of separate
NSManagedObject Contexts for the di erent threads whereas with Realm, you need
separate RLMRealm objects for di erent threads.
Either way, theres some extra e ort to understand whats going on, and it often throws
most developers. We were working on a project, had decided to go with Realm, and
instantly ran into unexpected behavior when we needed to update some objects on a
background thread. We sort of expected to be able to use the same RLMRealm object in
any thread, and that wasnt the case.
All told, I will say Realm is better at multi-threading than CoreData. Its far easier to
create another RLMRealm object than to manage multiple NSManagedObject contexts
with di erent data merging policies (which just seem like way more than any sane
developer needs to know to persist a few objects). With Realm, you will still be annoyed.
Albeit less so.
Claim: Realm is faster than CoreData. True or False?
True. Realm breaks away from SQLLite and employs a number of new techniques
behind the scenes to make fetch operations much faster than CoreData. This is the area
where Realm makes CoreData look old, and rightly so. CoreData has been in need of an
overhaul for a long time, and it still su ers from being tied to early 2000s era
technologies.
Claim: Realm breaks from the major design patterns and paradigms tied to
CoreData. True or False?
False. For all of the advances that come with the Swift programming language, Realm is
still tied to a class heavy architectural paradigm. Just like with CoreData, you do most of
the work by subclassing Object, a Realm class (Core data has you subclass
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Core Data vs. Realm - Ted Bendixson iOS Developer

NSManagedObject). This isnt bad. In fact, it could be argued that this is exactly the sort
of thing you would want. We generally want our persisted entities to be reference types
because that means di erent parts of the app can point to the same entity. When we
make changes to that entity, the changes are updated everywhere in the app as
opposed to just one place.
However, for those of you who were hoping for something more lightweight, you arent
going to nd it here. In many ways, Realm follows the same patterns found in CoreData.
The di erence is in the total amount of code you need to write to implement your
version of those patterns.
The Verdict?
I have nothing but respect for the Realm team, and not just for the work theyve done
on Realm but also the work theyre doing to engage the greater iOS development
community. Lately it seems like the most informative articles on the newer Swift
technologies can be found on their website. That gives me more comfort believing
theyre in it for the long haul. Theyve been been hard at work bringing together a
talented group of people who really understand what Swift is all about.
As a product, Realm is the easy-to-setup persistence solution weve been wanting.
Nearly all of the things youre hearing about it are true. Having used it in a recent
project, I have nothing but good things to say. Granted, it doesnt solve all of the
headaches that come with CoreData, but it does solve enough of them to make the
move worth the while. Although it can feel unsettling to leave behind a battle-tested
Apple supported product like CoreData, Realm is the rare exception to the rule. It gets
my thumbs up.

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