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@@ -34,24 +34,26 @@ One of the emerging strengths of Swift is its ability to interoperate with other
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The new Swift Java interop also makes it possible to work with existing Java libraries in Swift projects and begin to incrementally migrate large, existing Java codebases to Swift, without the need for major rewrites that are often risky. This was spoken about at the package's introduction at [ServerSide.swift 2024](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wn6C_XEv1Mo).
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Overall, Swift has evolved to be a great language for server development. Have a look at the [Cloud Services page](https://www.swift.org/get-started/cloud-services/) on swift.org for getting started tutorials, language benefits and more information about the server ecosystem.
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Overall, Swift has evolved to be a great language for server development. Have a look at the [Cloud Services page](/get-started/cloud-services/) on swift.org for getting started tutorials, language benefits and more information about the server ecosystem.
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## The Ecosystem
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As great as Swift is as a language, Swift on the server is nothing without an ecosystem. Over the last decade, [Vapor](https://vapor.codes) continues to evolve and grow, newer frameworks like [Hummingbird](https://hummingbird.codes) are taking advantage of modern Swift features, and a swathe of packages have been released to support all kinds of APIs, libraries and databases. I'm always amazed at the weird and wonderful ways people are using Swift in server environments and how much of the ecosystem is driven by the community.
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The [areweserveryet.org](https://areweswiftyyet.org/) website has a great list of different packages available, and the [Swift Package Index](https://swiftpackageindex.com/) has been instrumental in propelling the package ecosystem on Linux, with build results for every single package submitted.
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The [areweserveryet.org](https://areweserveryet.org/) website has a great list of different packages available, and the [Swift Package Index](https://swiftpackageindex.com/search?query=platform%3Alinux) has been instrumental in propelling the package ecosystem on Linux, with build results for every single package submitted, allowing anyone to quickly check platform support for packages. We're seeing Swift pick up more acceptance in the server world and the recent [Valkey announcement for Swift](https://valkey.io/blog/valkey-swift/) is a testament to the efforts of the community in making Swift a first-class citizen on the server.
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We're seeing Swift pick up more acceptance in the server world and the recent [Valkey announcement for Swift](https://valkey.io/blog/valkey-swift/) is a testament to the efforts of the community in making Swift a first-class citizen on the server.
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> Fun addendum - the Swift Package Index is itself built using Swift on the server, as one of the biggest (if not the biggest) open source Vapor applications!
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Swift is also building an awesome observability ecosystem. It has API packages for each of the three pillars (logging, metrics, and tracing), that mean you can plug in any backend you want and all the packages in your dependency tree will work it. And the growing list of backends already includes options for many popular open-source projects, such as [Prometheus](https://github.com/swift-server/swift-prometheus), [Statsd](https://github.com/apple/swift-statsd-client) and [Open Telemetry](https://github.com/swift-otel/swift-otel).
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Swift is also building an awesome observability ecosystem. It has API packages for each of the three pillars (logging, metrics, and tracing), that mean you can plug in any backend you want and all the packages in your dependency tree will work it. And the growing list of backends already includes options for many popular open-source projects, such as [Prometheus](https://github.com/swift-server/swift-prometheus), [Statsd](https://github.com/apple/swift-statsd-client) and [Open Telemetry](https://github.com/swift-otel/swift-otel). The entire server ecosystem has worked hard to ensure that all packages have adopted these core packages so there are no concerns around incompatibilities when choosing how to implement observability in your application, no matter the package you choose.
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The ecosystem continues to be an early adopter of Swift technologies. gRPC Swift 2 [introduced earlier this year](/blog/grpc-swift-2/) introduced first-class concurrency support was a particular highlight of the next generation of server packages emerging to take full advantage of structured concurrency. This has been heavily driven by the [Swift Server Workgroup](https://www.swift.org/sswg/), which is comprised of members from across the ecosystem and industry and continues to work to ensure that the ecosystem works together as well as driving improvements to the language, and tooling, such as the recently adopted [Swiftly](https://www.swift.org/blog/introducing-swiftly_10/) CLI tool, originally developer by the workgroup.
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The ecosystem continues to be an early adopter of Swift technologies. gRPC Swift 2 [introduced earlier this year](/blog/grpc-swift-2/) introduced first-class concurrency support was a particular highlight of the next generation of server packages emerging to take full advantage of structured concurrency. This has been heavily driven by the [Swift Server Workgroup](/sswg/), which is comprised of members from across the ecosystem and industry and continues to work to ensure that the ecosystem works together as well as driving improvements to the language, and tooling, such as the recently adopted [Swiftly](/blog/introducing-swiftly_10/) CLI tool, originally developer by the workgroup.
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## A growing community
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The last 10 years has seen the community grow and grow. There's even a dedicated conference! The [ServerSide.swift conference](https://www.serversideswift.info) I organize, is hosting it's 5th year this year in London. The schedule has recently been announced with talks on gRPC, containers, concurrency and success stories. Previous years have seen really great talks, such as the [success story of using Swift on the server](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJArLZIQF8w) by Cultured Code, the company behind Things. Other standout sessions include talks on [the OpenAPI generator](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1PRYVveLd0), the announcement of the new [Swift Foundation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUKSZiOaWKk)and technical language talks on [structured concurrency](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmrnE7HUaDE).
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The last 10 years has seen the community grow and grow at an ever accelerating pace and it feels great to know that the next 10 years will be even more exciting and see an even bigger community.
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Tickets for the this year's conference are still available on the [website](https://www.serversideswift.info). We even have a day of workshops, including a workshop from Apple on how to get started with Swift on the server, which is a great opportunity for anyone wanting to learn more.
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There's even a dedicated conference! The [ServerSide.swift conference](https://www.serversideswift.info) I organize, is hosting it's 5th year this year in London. The schedule has recently been announced and it's packed with amazing talks on gRPC, containers, concurrency and success stories. Previous years have seen really great talks, such as the [success story of using Swift on the server](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJArLZIQF8w) by Cultured Code, the company behind Things. Other standout sessions include talks on [the OpenAPI generator](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n1PRYVveLd0), the announcement of the new [Swift Foundation](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EUKSZiOaWKk) and technical language talks on [structured concurrency](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmrnE7HUaDE).
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Tickets for the this year's conference are still available on the [website](https://www.serversideswift.info). We even have a day of workshops, including a workshop from expert developers from Apple on how to get started with Swift on the server, which is a great opportunity for anyone wanting to learn more.
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Swift has come a long way on the server since the early days. The adoption of Swift on the server is ever-increasing as the language proves its benefits for safe, performant backends. The ecosystem continues to grow, with more frameworks, libraries, and tools being developed to support server-side Swift applications. I can't believe it's 'only' been ten years since it started, and I'm excited to see how Swift on the server grows over the next decade!
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