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I moved to Homebrew a few years ago because MacPorts was significantly slower in adding new versions of some of the packages I needed to use for work. I had res

I moved to Homebrew a few years ago because MacPorts was significantly slower in adding new versions of some of the packages I needed to use for work. I had resisted using Homebrew until that point because the architecture of MacPorts made more sense to me, and because Homebrew's permission model in /usr/local is terrible. At this point it seems like Homebrew is the standard -- I frequently see open source projects recommending it in their installation instructions without mentioning Macports. I also recommend Homebrew to friends and coworkers, for the reasons I already mentioned, and also because it is significantly easier to install. Go to their website and the first thing you see is an installation script. Go to the MacPorts website and you see a link to an installation page partway down. That installation page is very long and lists a number of prerequisites needed for the installation to work. Homebrew does the installation bit way better, thus making the barrier to entry far lower. MacPorts would need to demonstrate significant advantages over Homebrew to get me to switch back.

saagarjha 8y ago
Hi, I wrote this article. I also switched from Homebrew with pretty much the same opinion as you: a lot of projects have seemed to switched to "Homebrew-only" as it's more popular (and better advertised) than MacPorts is, which I think is a shame. Regarding ease of use, though, it's not actually that bad: while the website is a bit dated, you can basically just click the "Download" button and then the link for your operating system and run the installer. And as for reasons why MacPorts is better: that's basically what my article was about ;)
aisofteng 8y ago
As someone who switched to MacOS for work a few years ago for a new job out of a desire to not have the fudge with Linux for getting work done at work, I thought MacPorts was obsolete based on what I found online about installing packages and so on.
- saagarjha 8y ago
  I thought so too at first, but it's not! It's maintained relatively actively (https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/commits/master https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/commits/master), so I think this perspective is mostly just a result of Homebrew having better marketing/more people using it.
- sk5t 8y ago
  IME the solution for "not have to fudge with Linux for getting work done at work" has been simply to use Debian + ohmyzsh + i3wm. It has never broken for me in day-to-day use as Fedora had.
- petre 8y ago
  Now you have to fudge with MacOS package managers to get work done at work. We deploy on Linux but code on Macs. It's annoying and a lot of work to set up the dev environment on a Mac whereas on Linux I have almost everything available a package manager command away.

saagarjha 8y ago

Hi, I wrote this article. I also switched from Homebrew with pretty much the same opinion as you: a lot of projects have seemed to switched to "Homebrew-only" as it's more popular (and better advertised) than MacPorts is, which I think is a shame. Regarding ease of use, though, it's not actually that bad: while the website is a bit dated, you can basically just click the "Download" button and then the link for your operating system and run the installer. And as for reasons why MacPorts is better: that's basically what my article was about ;)

aisofteng 8y ago

As someone who switched to MacOS for work a few years ago for a new job out of a desire to not have the fudge with Linux for getting work done at work, I thought MacPorts was obsolete based on what I found online about installing packages and so on.

saagarjha 8y ago
I thought so too at first, but it's not! It's maintained relatively actively (https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/commits/master https://github.com/macports/macports-ports/commits/master), so I think this perspective is mostly just a result of Homebrew having better marketing/more people using it.
sk5t 8y ago
IME the solution for "not have to fudge with Linux for getting work done at work" has been simply to use Debian + ohmyzsh + i3wm. It has never broken for me in day-to-day use as Fedora had.
petre 8y ago
Now you have to fudge with MacOS package managers to get work done at work. We deploy on Linux but code on Macs. It's annoying and a lot of work to set up the dev environment on a Mac whereas on Linux I have almost everything available a package manager command away.