Comparison

Pilcrow vs Microsoft SwiftKey on iPhone

Published 3 October 2026 · 5 min read

SwiftKey has been one of the best-known third-party keyboards for a decade, and on iPhone it is free, actively updated and well reviewed. Here is how it compares with Pilcrow, using Microsoft’s own documentation for everything said about SwiftKey.

Pilcrow is our product, so we have tried to be careful in SwiftKey’s favour. Every SwiftKey fact below links to Microsoft’s support pages or the App Store listing, as they stood in October 2026.

What SwiftKey does well

• It is free, and it is maintained: the App Store listing shows regular updates through 2026, including a Liquid Glass theme in August and another update in September.
• Language coverage is huge. Microsoft says SwiftKey for iOS supports more than 600 languages. Flow, its swipe typing, works on iPhone; Microsoft publishes which languages lack it only for Android, so on iPhone you find out by trying.
• Two languages without switching. With two languages that share a layout, SwiftKey detects which one you are writing and predicts in it. If the layouts differ, you slide on the space bar to change layout.
• It is well liked. The US listing shows a 4.6 rating from about 122,000 ratings.
• You can look at your learned words if you use Backup & Sync: Microsoft stores your personal dictionary in a human-readable file in your own OneDrive, where you can view or delete it.

Where the two differ

How many languages at once

Microsoft’s support page is direct about it: on iOS, SwiftKey works with up to two languages at a time. If you add a third, one of the first two has to go. Pilcrow lets you enable several, and tells them apart word by word in the same sentence. If your day runs in two languages, both handle it; if it runs in three, only one of them does.

Full Access

Every third-party keyboard on iPhone shows Apple’s warning when you turn on Full Access. Microsoft explains that SwiftKey’s keyboard requires it on iOS, because key parts of SwiftKey — language models, personalised learning and preferences — live in the container app, and the keyboard cannot read them without the permission. Microsoft also states that granting it does not mean everything you type is transferred.

Pilcrow is built the other way round. The keyboard works completely with Full Access off: typing, corrections, predictions, learning and downloaded languages. Turning it on adds three things — haptic feedback, the clipboard panel with its paste chip, and the app’s view of your learned words. It cannot add network access, because the Pilcrow keyboard contains no networking code. If you want to understand the switch itself, read what “Allow Full Access” means.

Accounts and backup

SwiftKey’s backup and sync moved to OneDrive, and Microsoft says the rollout was to be complete by 31 May 2026. It uses your Microsoft account. You do not have to opt in: Microsoft says that without Backup & Sync your data stays on your device and you can still use SwiftKey normally, without syncing between devices.

Pilcrow has no account at all, and no cloud service of its own. What it learns stays on the device, and is included in your normal iPhone backup under Apple’s terms, like the data of any other app.

Seeing what it learned

SwiftKey shows your learned words as files in OneDrive, if you use backup. Pilcrow shows them inside the keyboard: hold any suggestion and the list opens, and each word, phrase, spelling or correction can be deleted, blocked or edited on its own. You can also set any field to “don’t learn here”.

How corrections behave

Pilcrow’s design goal is a keyboard that leaves correctly spelled words alone. On held-out text it changes a correct word fewer than 7 times in 1,000, while restoring 61–72 % of words typed with a genuine slip, quoted at the worst end across the languages it ships. When you undo a correction once, it is never applied to that word again. We could not find comparable published figures for SwiftKey, so there is no number to put beside these; the fair test is your own typing over a few days.

Side by side

Which one should you pick?

SwiftKey makes sense if price matters most, if you want your typing history to follow you to an Android phone or another device through a Microsoft account, or if your language is one of the hundreds Pilcrow does not cover.

Pilcrow makes sense if you write in three languages rather than two, if you would rather leave Full Access off, if you do not want an account attached to your keyboard, or if “it changed my word again” is the complaint you most want to stop hearing yourself make.

Nothing stops you trying both. Install each, add them in Settings › General › Keyboard › Keyboards, and switch with the globe key. Pilcrow’s three free days start from the first word you type with it, not from installation, and nothing is charged when they end.

Also comparing Google’s keyboard? See Pilcrow vs Gboard, or the wider roundup of keyboards for typing in two languages.

Last checked October 2026 against Microsoft’s support pages and the US App Store listing (SwiftKey version 4.3.6). Microsoft is a trademark of Microsoft Corporation; Pilcrow is not affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft. If anything here is out of date, write to info@pilcrowtype.com.

Sources

1. Microsoft Support, How to use Microsoft SwiftKey Keyboard with more than one language
2. Microsoft Support, What languages are currently supported for Microsoft SwiftKey Keyboard?
3. Microsoft Support, Why does my Microsoft SwiftKey Keyboard need Full Access in iOS?
4. Microsoft Support, SwiftKey Backup and Sync with OneDrive
5. App Store, Microsoft SwiftKey AI Keyboard (version history, ratings)