CALayer or UIImageView for displaying static custom graphics?

Question

I need to draw some graphics dynamically for my view. These graphics will not be animating. Is it more efficient to draw and display them in a CALayer or use UIGraphicsBeginImageContextWithOptions() to create a UIImage and display it in a UIImageView? Does it matter? Or which questions could I ask to help me pick one over the other?

Answer 1

The first step to knowing what is more efficient is to define what that means to you. Are you talking about memory usage, CPU usage, etc? Next try the different approaches and measure against your definition of efficiency. The results may vary based I your exact usage.

That said: unless this is a core functionality of your app the difference in performance/efficiency is probably going to be very small (especially since image views use layers behind the scenes).

You should start with the solution that seems easiest to implement and understand. Only if that becomes a bottleneck should you look into optimizations.