Reyhaneh Jabbari, 26, who had been on death row for five years, was put to death at dawn on Saturday, the official IRNA news agency quoted the Tehran prosecutor's office as saying.
The execution drew condemnation from the United States and human rights monitor Amnesty International, which dubbed it "a bloody stain on Iran's human rights record" and "an affront to justice".
"We condemn this morning's execution in Iran of Reyhaneh Jabbari," said the statement by US State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki, who said there were "serious concerns with the fairness of the trial and the circumstances surrounding this case."
Among those concerns were "reports of confessions made under severe duress," Psaki said.
A message posted on the homepage of a Facebook campaign set up to try to save Jabbari noted the "sad news" of her death, adding the words "Rest in Peace" alongside pictures of her as a young child.
Jabbari, an interior designer, was executed for the fatal 2007 stabbing of Morteza Abdolali Sarbandi.
The United Nations and human rights groups had said a confession to her crime was obtained under intense pressure and threats from Iranian prosecutors, and that she should have had a retrial.
Iranian actors and other prominent figures had campaigned for clemency on Jabbari's behalf, echoing similar calls in the West.
The execution drew condemnation from the United States and human rights monitor Amnesty International, which dubbed it "a bloody stain on Iran's human rights record" and "an affront to justice".
The judiciary had given several deadlines for Sarbandi's family to spare Jabbari under an Islamic sharia law provision that allows a death sentence for murder to be commuted to jail time.
But relatives of Sarbandi, a 47-year-old surgeon who earlier worked for the intelligence ministry, refused the pleas, demanding, according to Iranian media, that she tell "the truth."
A UN human rights monitor said the killing came in self-defence after Sarbandi tried to sexually abuse Jabbari, and that the condemned woman's trial in 2009 had been deeply flawed.
But a medical report, prepared for the judiciary and quoted by IRNA in its Saturday dispatch, said Sarbandi was stabbed in the back and that the killing had been premeditated.
Efforts for a commuted jail sentence had intensified in recent weeks but Sarbandi's family and Jabbari remained at loggerheads over the circumstances of the killing.
According to the United Nations, more than 250 people have been executed in Iran since the beginning of 2014.
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