What is iglistkit?

instagram/iglistkit — explained in plain English

Analysis updated 2026-06-24

★ 13,062Objective-CAudience · developerComplexity · 3/5LicenseSetup · easy

Mindmap

mindmap
  root((IGListKit))
    What It Does
      Fast iOS list rendering
      Auto-diffing data
    Key Concepts
      Section controllers
      Diffing algorithm
      UICollectionView
    Install
      CocoaPods
      Swift Package Manager
      Carthage
    Compatibility
      Swift and Objective-C
      iOS 11 and above

mindmap root((IGListKit)) What It Does Fast iOS list rendering Auto-diffing data Key Concepts Section controllers Diffing algorithm UICollectionView Install CocoaPods Swift Package Manager Carthage Compatibility Swift and Objective-C iOS 11 and above

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What do people build with it?

USE CASE 1

Build complex iOS feeds like social timelines that update efficiently without reloading the entire list.

USE CASE 2

Organize a large UICollectionView into independent section controllers to keep code maintainable as the feed grows.

USE CASE 3

Improve iOS app scroll performance by replacing manual reloadData calls with IGListKit's diffing-based updates.

What is it built with?

Objective-CSwiftCocoaPodsSwift Package Manager

How does it compare?

	instagram/iglistkit	cocoalumberjack/cocoalumberjack	darlinghq/darling
Stars	13,062	13,319	12,768
Language	Objective-C	Objective-C	Objective-C
Setup difficulty	easy	easy	hard
Complexity	3/5	2/5	4/5
Audience	developer	developer	developer

Figures from each repo's GitHub metadata at analysis time.

How do you get it running?

Difficulty · easy Time to first run · 30min

Use freely for any purpose, including commercial apps, as long as you keep the MIT license and copyright notice.

So what is it?

IGListKit is a framework for iOS developers to build faster, more organized lists and grids within their apps. It sits on top of UICollectionView, the standard iOS component for showing scrollable content, and adds smarter data management so developers do not have to manually figure out which items changed when the underlying data updates. A built-in diffing algorithm compares old data to new data and only updates the parts that changed, rather than reloading everything at once. The practical benefit is both performance and cleaner code. Apps avoid unnecessary reloads of entire lists when only a few rows change. The framework also encourages organizing each section of a list into its own separate controller, which makes large, complex feeds like the Instagram home feed easier to build and maintain. Instagram engineering built and uses this library in the production Instagram app. IGListKit is written in Objective-C and has full Swift compatibility. It targets iOS 11 and tvOS 11 and above, with some components also working on macOS. Developers can add it to a project through CocoaPods, Carthage, or Swift Package Manager, all standard iOS dependency tools. The library is open source under an MIT license. It includes example projects in the repository, a getting-started guide, and full API documentation hosted online. The project welcomes outside contributions and marks beginner-friendly issues for those new to the codebase.

Copy-paste prompts

Prompt 1

How do I set up IGListKit in a Swift project using Swift Package Manager and create my first section controller?

Prompt 2

Show me how to implement IGListDiffable in a Swift data model so IGListKit can automatically diff my data and animate row changes.

Prompt 3

Walk me through migrating an existing UICollectionView that calls reloadData manually to IGListKit's adapter pattern.

Frequently asked questions