Ignition on macOS vs. Windows – What’s Your Experience?

General Discussion
,
1

Hello everyone:

I’m reaching out to get some insight from the community on a topic I’ve been thinking about: what’s your preferred platform when developing with Ignition—macOS or Windows?

I know Windows tends to be the go-to for many, but I’m curious how people’s experiences compare when using macOS—whether for development, testing, or even day-to-day project work.

A few things I'd like to know:

  • Do you notice any performance differences between the two?
  • Any limitations or advantages you’ve run into?
  • Is one OS noticeably smoother or more enjoyable to work with in Ignition?
  • Any tips, tricks, or lessons learned from using one over the other?

I’m not trying to start a platform debate—just looking to get a better understanding of real-world experiences from fellow developers and integrators. Would really appreciate hearing your thoughts!

Thank You

2

I have no experience other than Windows and rasberrian Linux, but looking at the market share, Windows is 71% and macOS is 10% :grimacing:

1 Like
3

Hmm. Don't think I've used a Mac since my wife's LC III :thinking: 8Mb of RAM, baby...

Joking aside, As a Windows and Linux user, I don't see any difference in using Ignition. I doubt there would be any difference in Mac either, with Ignition being Java under the hood.

IMO, I think it would be in personal preference, and what other types of work you do. I do some music and video editing, and occasionally wish I had a Mac for such things, but not enough work to justify getting one.

1 Like
4

I develop at work on Windows and at home on macOS.
Windows is a pain in the @ss at work, and its missing so much good stuff that unix/linux systems have natively.
Ignition itself is the same give or take on both platforms, that is the nature of running on a Java platform. There are tiny differences in menus, title bars and such things.
macOS is very nice as a platform for coding and developing on, it just seems to be compatible with more dev tools out of the box and rarely has crashes or odd issues and bugs.
macOS is a much smoother experience in general, and the laptop hardware is good to boot, I am running all my dev pipelines on a 7 year old macbook pro, and apart from battery issues, the hardware never makes me notice it.
I have been writing Ignition modules on both platforms in intelliJ IDE, and the experience is pretty much identical between platforms, the differences are the tools outside the IDE.
All that said, I would never run my work laptop as macOS, due to all the legacy vendor cr@p software I need for proprietary hardware all running on Windows only.

4 Likes