Why is brew better than macports

Fink distributes binaries, and uses apt-get like Linux. Fink uses root, which can lead to users goofing up their system or workplace policy issues. The relative popularity of packages managers shows a huge advantage to Homebrew.

Keep in mind the limitations of package manager statistics. Has guides and automation to create your own formula files ie. Homebrew It is more dependent on existing Mac OS X installed packages , so this will speed up the installation of packages and minimize redundant libraries. So, these are the two different kind of tradeoff. That said its pretty damn simple to create your own portfile. Hope some of that was useful. Tags: Homebrew Macports Fink. Pandas how to find column contains a certain value Recommended way to install multiple Python versions on Ubuntu Ask Question.

Asked 9 years, 11 months ago. Active 2 months ago. Viewed k times. I will use this computer primarily to develop Ruby on Rails applications. Improve this question. JoaoHornburg JoaoHornburg 1, 2 2 gold badges 12 12 silver badges 7 7 bronze badges. I edited your title to make it match your real question.

On most Stack Exchange sites question asking for "the best" are frowned upon. Why do you need any of these won't ruby's gems be sufficient? Never used it myself, but perhaps a comparison to pkgin would also be useful. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. These are my reasons for using each a pro list if you will : Fink Apt-based - feel right at home if you come from a Debian-based environment. Easy and intuitive port files, also allows you to add your own. Homebrew Maximum leveraging of what comes with OS X.

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. Has guides and automation to create your own formula files ie. Written in ruby and all formulas are concise ruby scripts. Improve this answer. Comments are not for extended discussion; this conversation has been moved to chat.

If the lock needs to be released, please raise that issue on Ask Different Meta or with a flag. This makes a rather inaccurate impression. There is no difference between Homebrew and MacPorts in this regard I don't know the other two. I think it is worth readding my comment that this is opinion - the first three points for Homebrew are the main reasons I don't use it. And the rest apply to macports except it uses tcl rather than ruby — mmmmmm.

Homebrew does not support more than the last 3 versions of MacOS. Officially they do support older versions but they deleted the binaries so you'll have to rebuild everything on your machine, and that is why I switched back to MacPorts.

Show 1 more comment. MacPorts It is more independent of Mac OS X, this means MacPorts will just ignore many of the system libraries and softwares that 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 softwares. Homebrew It is more dependent on existing Mac OS X installed packages, so this will speed up the installation of packages and minimize redundant libraries.

So, these are the two different kind of tradeoff. Community Bot 1.