#Homebrew vs macports 2017 mac os x#
#Homebrew vs macports 2017 install#
#Homebrew vs macports 2017 pro#
#Homebrew vs macports 2017 software#

That said its pretty damn simple to create your own portfile.

HB is all Ruby whereas MacPorts, and its package formulae, are written in TCL which is.not exactly a popular scripting language.

I do think HB has advantages that mean it will probably 'win the war' in the long run though Take this with a grain of salt though as I'm not a regular HB user (and its rather painful to use both side by side). However most peoples opinions of MP seem to be based on experiences from circa 2011-12 or so & don't really take this into account. So, if only to offer a countervailing opinion, MacPorts seems to actually be the 'faster ' option these days.

#Homebrew vs macports 2017 install#

From what I gather Homebrew is also moving in this direction with 'Bottles' but i get the impression that most things you install via HB at this point in time will be compiled from source. However over the past year or so, based purely on my own impressions, it seems like 90% of MP packages are binaries & so installation is actually really fast now. A new installation was particularly painful/slow. When I first switched to OS X & was using MacPorts the MP philosophy was indeed frustrating because almost everything was built from source. However, IMO, MacPorts is a different beast now than it was a couple of years ago. You'll find a lot of blogs with people talking about how much happier they are with Homebrew - usually because of the whole 'MacPorts pulls in the whole world' vs 'Homebrew makes use of what you already have' thing. Homebrew, as of a couple of years ago, definitely has the upper hand in terms of mindshare. Just to add some of my own thoughts that seem true-ish circa late 2014 at least. So, these are the two different kind of tradeoff.Īlso, Homebrew takes over /usr/local by default, which some folks don't like because it somehow conflicts with the Unix tradition and might cause problems if you’ve already installed anything there (MySQL, etc.)Īpart from these differences, considering the packages these two can offer, you can check with these two commands if you already have MacPorts/Homebrew installed, which show you the packages they currently provided: port list | wc -lĪnd you will find out that MacPorts has many more packages than Homebrew.

#Homebrew vs macports 2017 mac os x#

It is more dependent on existing Mac OS X installed packages, so this will speed up the installation of packages and minimize redundant libraries.īut the risk is installed packages might be broken because of Apple's system update/upgrade.

#Homebrew vs macports 2017 software#

It is more independent of Mac OS X, this means MacPorts will just ignore many of the system libraries and software that's already available in Mac OS X and pull its own one instead, which could be slower when the utility you install requires some set of large libraries and software.īut this kind of choice is safer because the packages you installed are less influenced by Apple's system update/upgrade procedure. Known to work on NetBSD, DragonFly BSD, Solaris, Debian, macOS, Minix.Written in ruby and all formulas are concise ruby scripts.Has guides and automation to create your own formula files (ie.Every installed package is cleanly sandboxed into its own cellar so you don't have stray files all over your system, just symlinks from bin, man, etc.Installs into /usr/local (Intel) or /opt/homebrew (Apple Silicon).Unlike Fink or MacPorts, it does not require you to build/install ruby and libraries from scratch just to install some small Ruby-based tool. Maximum leveraging of what comes with OS X.Supports many versions of macOS going back to Mac OS X Tiger including PowerPC versions see other answer.Easy and intuitive port files, also allows you to add your own.Nice variants system that lets you customise the build.Unlike homebrew do not depend on MacOS library that may change in the future.Apt-based - feel right at home if you come from a Debian-based environment.

#Homebrew vs macports 2017 pro#

These are my reasons for using each (a pro list if you will): Fink I started with Fink, then switched to MacPorts (happier), then Homebrew (much, much happier). Comments on this answer have been disabled, but it is still accepting other interactions.