这个问题似乎是重复的，但无论如何，下面的问题将回答大多数用例:

One of the most important differences between structures and classes is that structures are value types and are always copied when they are passed around in your code, and classes are reference type and are passed by reference. Also, classes have Inheritance which allows one class to inherit the characteristics of another. Struct properties are stored on Stack and Class instances are stored on Heap hence, sometimes the stack is drastically faster than a class. Struct gets a default initializer automatically whereas in Class, we have to initialize. Struct is thread safe or singleton at any point of time.

而且, 要总结结构和类之间的区别，有必要了解值类型和引用类型之间的区别。

在复制值类型时，它将从其中复制所有数据 你要复制到新变量中的东西。它们是分开的 事物和改变一个并不影响另一个。 复制引用类型时，新变量引用 与你要复制的东西相同的内存位置。这意味着 改变一个会改变另一个因为它们都指向 相同的内存位置。 下面的示例代码可以作为参考。

/ / sampleplayground.playground

  class MyClass {
        var myName: String
        init(myName: String){
            self.myName = myName;
        }
    }

    var myClassExistingName = MyClass(myName: "DILIP")
    var myClassNewName = myClassExistingName
    myClassNewName.myName = "John"


    print("Current Name: ",myClassExistingName.myName)
    print("Modified Name", myClassNewName.myName)

    print("*************************")

    struct myStruct {
        var programmeType: String
        init(programmeType: String){
            self.programmeType = programmeType
        }
    }

    var myStructExistingValue = myStruct(programmeType: "Animation")
    var myStructNewValue = myStructExistingValue
    myStructNewValue.programmeType = "Thriller"

    print("myStructExistingValue: ", myStructExistingValue.programmeType)
    print("myStructNewValue: ", myStructNewValue.programmeType)

输出:

Current Name:  John
Modified Name John
*************************
myStructExistingValue:  Animation
myStructNewValue:  Thriller

Usually (in most programming languages), objects are blocks of data that are stored on heap, and then a reference (normally a pointer) to these blocks, contains a name is using to access these blocks of data. This mechanism allows sharing objects in the heap by copying the value of their references (pointers). This is not the case of basic data types such as Integers, and that is because the memory needed to create a reference is almost the same as the object (in this case integer value). Thus, they will be passed as values not as a reference in the case of large objects.

Swift使用struct来提高String和Array对象的性能。

这是一本很好的读物

如果你仔细看苹果手册，你会看到这部分: 结构和枚举是值类型

在本节中，你会看到:

“​let​ ​hd​ = ​Resolution​(​width​: ​1920​, ​height​: ​1080​) ​var​ ​cinema​ = ​hd This example declares a constant called hd and sets it to a Resolution instance initialized with the width and height of full HD video (1920 pixels wide by 1080 pixels high). It then declares a variable called cinema and sets it to the current value of hd. Because Resolution is a structure, a copy of the existing instance is made, and this new copy is assigned to cinema. Even though hd and cinema now have the same width and height, they are two completely different instances behind the scenes. Next, the width property of cinema is amended to be the width of the slightly-wider 2K standard used for digital cinema projection (2048 pixels wide and 1080 pixels high): ​cinema​.​width​ = ​2048 Checking the width property of cinema shows that it has indeed changed to be 2048: ​println​(​"cinema is now ​(​cinema​.​width​)​ pixels wide"​) ​// prints "cinema is now 2048 pixels wide However, the width property of the original hd instance still has the old value of 1920: println​(​"hd is still ​(​hd​.​width​)​ pixels wide"​) // prints "hd is still 1920 pixels wide” When cinema was given the current value of hd, the values stored in hd were copied into the new cinema instance. The end result is two completely separate instances, which just happened to contain the same numeric values. Because they are separate instances, setting the width of cinema to 2048 doesn’t affect the width stored in hd.” Excerpt From: Apple Inc. “The Swift Programming Language.” iBooks. https://itun.es/us/jEUH0.l

这是结构体和类之间最大的区别。复制结构，引用类。

类和结构都可以做到:

定义属性来存储值 定义提供功能的方法 被扩展 遵守协议 定义初始化 定义下标以提供对其变量的访问

唯一的类可以做到:

继承 铸字 定义deinitialisers 允许多个引用进行引用计数。

Struct是值类型。这意味着，如果你将结构的实例复制到另一个变量，它只是复制到变量。

值类型示例

struct Resolution {
    var width = 2
    var height = 3
}

let hd = Resolution(width: 1920, height: 1080)
var cinema = hd //assigning struct instance  to variable
println("Width of cinema instance is \(cinema.width)")//result is 1920
println("Width of hd instance is \(hd.width)")//result is 1920

cinema.width = 2048

println("Width of cinema instance is \(cinema.width)")//result is 2048
println("Width of hd instance is \(hd.width)")//result is 1920

类是引用类型。这意味着如果将类的一个实例赋值给一个变量，它将只保存对该实例的引用，而不是副本。

已经有很多关于这方面的文章了，我想在这里加一个类比。希望你看完这篇文章后，心中永远不会再有疑虑: 底线: 类通过引用传递，而结构通过值传递。

假设你和你的朋友共享一个谷歌文档表。现在，如果他改变了其中的任何内容，你也会在谷歌文档上看到变化，这意味着你的副本也受到了影响。 这基本上是“通过引用传递”。

但假设，如果你有一个。xls文件保存在你的机器。你把那份文件交给你的朋友。现在，如果他在那个文件中做了任何更改，你的文件也不会被打乱/影响，因为你有自己的副本。 这基本上就是“按值传递”。 你有多个简单的程序已经在那里检查这个类比在快速操场。