Homebrew Alternatives for Mac
There are many alternatives to Homebrew for Mac if you are looking for a replacement. The best Mac alternative is MacUpdater. It's not free, so if you're looking for a free alternative, you could try Nix Package Manager or MacPorts. If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked more than 50 alternatives to Homebrew and 19 are available for Mac so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting Mac alternatives to Homebrew are Brewer X, Applite, Mas CLI and Setapp.
filter to find the best alternatives
Homebrew alternatives are mainly Package Managers, but if you're looking for Software Installers or Software Updaters you can filter on that. These are just examples - use the filter bar below to find more specific alternatives to Homebrew.- Package Manager
- Free • Open Source
- 17 MacUpdater alternatives
MacUpdater is an application that can scan your Mac and display which of the apps that you have installed are not up-to-date. MacUpdater can also update those outdated apps to their newest versions with a simple click.
License model
- Paid • Proprietary
Application types
Country of Origin
Germany
EU
Platforms
- Mac
- 44 Nix Package Manager alternatives
Nix is a powerful package manager for macOS, Linux and other Unix systems that makes package management reliable and reproducible. It provides atomic upgrades and rollbacks, side-by-side installation of multiple versions of a package, multi-user package management and easy setup...
License model
- Free • Open Source
Application types
Country of Origin
Netherlands
EU
Platforms
- Mac
- Linux
- BSD
- 14 Brewer X alternatives
Brewer X is a refreshing user interface for Homebrew. Manage your apps, scripts, and fonts with ease and dive into the most comprehensive software library for macOS.
License model
- Paid • Proprietary
Application types
Country of Origin
United States
Platforms
- Mac
The MacPorts Project is an opensource package management system that simplifies compiling, installing, upgrading, and removal of other open-source software on Mac OS X 10.4 Tiger and later, running on Intel or Apple Silicon.
License model
- Free • Open Source
Application types
Country of Origin
United States
Platforms
- Mac
MacPorts Features
License model
- Free • Open Source
Application types
Platforms
- Mac
- Homebrew
- 13 Mas CLI alternatives
A simple command line interface for the Mac App Store. Designed for scripting and automation.
License model
- Free • Open Source
Application types
Country of Origin
Russia
Platforms
- Mac
- 9 Setapp alternatives
Setapp provides a curated collection of commercial apps available through a low-cost subscription. Access to the apps is driven by a straight-forward local app that neatly organizes them in a searchable, filterable and configurable list.
Setapp Features
Comments about Setapp as an Alternative to Homebrew
Spack is a package manager for supercomputers, Linux, and macOS. It makes installing scientific software easy. Spack isn’t tied to a particular language; you can build a software stack in Python or R, link to libraries written in C, C++, or Fortran, and easily swap compilers or...
License model
- Free • Open Source
Application type
Country of Origin
- International
Platforms
- Mac
- Linux
Spack Features
Cakebrew is the most convenient way to use Homebrew for your daily tasks! It does for Homebrew what Synaptics does to Linux package managers. From the Cakebrew UI, you can:
DiscontinuedLast update is from March 2021. It's no longer maintained https://github.com/brunophilipe/Cakebrew/issues/255
Cakebrew Features
A modern, delicious implementation of the Nix package manager, focused on correctness, usability, and growth — and committed to doing right by its community.
License model
- Free • Open Source
Application type
Country of Origin
Germany
EU
Platforms
- Linux
- Mac
- 23 macapps.link alternatives
The best alternative to Ninite for Mac. Get multiple apps silently. Just choose what apps to install and get apps installed automatically, fast and easy.
macapps.link Features
- 22 asdf alternatives
"asdf" is a tool version manager. All tool version definitions are contained within one file (.tool-versions) which you can check in to your project's Git repository to share with your team, ensuring everyone is using the exact same versions of tools.
asdf Features
Homebrew is for open source packages. Setapp is just a subscription-based app ownership platform for proprietary applications.