# SDWebImage

Asynchronous image downloader with cache support as a UIImageView category

Repository: https://github.com/SDWebImage/SDWebImage
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/sdwebimage
Homepage: https://sdwebimage.github.io
Language: Objective-C
License: MIT
License Family: permissive
Topics: macos, ios, watchos, image, jpeg, png, gif, webp, cache, objective-c, swift, cocoapods, carthage, sdwebimage, heif, visionos
Last push: 2026-04-15T03:36:16+00:00
Link (homepage): https://sdwebimage.github.io

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 76/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-02T17:46:02.011165+00:00)
- activity 77, release rhythm 60, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 6190, "days_push": 140, "days_rel": 188, "gap_med": 50, "n_releases_24m": 10}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 25634, forks 5961 (observed 2026-08-28T04:11:38.377114+00:00)

## What it is
SDWebImage is an asynchronous image downloader and caching library for Apple platforms, provided as categories on UIImageView, UIButton, and MKAnnotationView. It offers memory and disk caching, background decompression, progressive and animated image loading, and an extensible coder system supporting formats like WebP and HEIF.

## Use cases
- load remote images asynchronously into uiimageview
- cache images on disk and memory in an ios app
- display animated gif and webp images in ios
- download and show images in swiftui views
- avoid ui lag from image decoding on the main thread
- apply transformations to downloaded images

## When to choose
- you build iOS, macOS, watchOS, or visionOS apps that display remote images
- you need battle-tested async image loading with caching on Apple platforms
- you need animated image support like GIF or WebP with good CPU/memory balance

## When to avoid
- you develop for Android or non-Apple platforms
- you use SwiftUI exclusively and prefer Apple's native AsyncImage for simple cases
- you need a cross-platform image pipeline outside the Apple ecosystem

## Facets
- artifact type: library
- maturity: stable
- function: image-processing, caching, http-client, ui-components
- domain: mobile-development, image-processing, frontend
- platform: cpp
- tags: cocoapods, swiftui, animated-images, webp, uikit, image-downloader, ios, macos, swift

## Member repositories
- SDWebImage/SDWebImage (main) score 76
- SDWebImage/SDWebImageSwiftUI (plugin) score 59

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:38.377114+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-29T16:56:00.937152+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/SDWebImage/SDWebImage (fetched 2026-08-28T04:11:38.377114+00:00, sha b9db43da3eff)
  - homepage: https://sdwebimage.github.io (fetched 2026-08-29T07:52:39.998486+00:00, sha ab35d222d1a3)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.