What are the best developer tools for Mac OSX?

Question

35

Options
Considered

702

User
Recs.

Aug 6, 2020

Last
Updated

Here’s the Deal

The Best 2 of 31 OptionsWhy?

Best developer tools for Mac OSX	Price	Supported platforms	Packages
97 Homebrew	Free	macOS	4635
95 iTerm2	-	macOS	-
81 Visual Studio Code	FREE	-	-
80 Sublime Text	$7	-	-
74 Tower	-	-	-

See Full List

iTerm2

Top Pro

Extremely customizable

Other than being able to customize the various shortcuts, iTerm2 also lets you customize the color scheme, font, transparency, etc. See More

Top Con

Not necessary

No compelling reason to install an alternative terminal app, just complicates setup. See More

Nathanial McConnell's Experience

When you live on the command line, you’ll be hard-pressed to find a better smart box for your myriad tools. Get what you want, when you need it, in the most useful and efficient manner....or change everything until it is. Must keep iterating dotfiles. See More

Specs

Supported platforms:macOS

Ligature support:Yes

f:f

Top Pro

Split Panes

Divide a tab up into multiple panes, each one of which shows a different session. You can slice vertically and horizontally and create any number of panes in any imaginable arrangement. enter image description here Notice how inactive panes are slightly dimmed so it's easy to see which is active. See More

Marc-André Appel's Experience

THE Terminal for macOS. See More

Top Pro

Complete out of the box

Unlike most terminal emulators, iTerm2 comes with a pretty complete set of features. It has built-in search, autocompletion, tabbed navigation, Growl support and even a built-in clipboard manager for various API keys and such. See More

Top Pro

Customization

Great support for customization, even includes a custom theme file for coloring the terminal shell, as .itermcolors file. See More

Top Pro

tmux integration

Top Pro

Open paths and URLs with command-click

Top Pro

Active maintainers

Issues resolved fast by quality contributors. See More

Top Pro

You only need to type in commands once

iTerm2 can store up to 4M of the history of commands you already used. This, coupled with the built-in search features makes it possible to type a command only once and then search for it through the history for subsequent uses. See More

Top Pro

Completely free and open source

iTerm2 is completely free and open source. It's released under the GPLv2 license. See More

Top Pro

Can be configured as a drop-down terminal

Can be configured to work as a drop down terminal like Quake. See More

Top Pro

Supported by many applications as a terminal app selection

If an application has terminal integration, there is high probability it allows iTerm2 to be selected. See More

Top Pro

Supports mouse actions

Has support for mouse actions like clicking, dragging, selecting, etc. See More

Top Pro

Hi-color support

Top Pro

Autocomplete is built-in

iTerm has auto-complete features built -in. It remembers your past commands and when you are writing something on the terminal, simply pressing Control-; will show you a drop-down menu of suggestions from which to choose. See More

Top Pro

Fine tuning for fonts

It's possible to choose a font and adjust vertical and horizontal spacing. See More

Top Pro

Can immediately open files inside a text editor

You can Ctrl+Click on a file path to open the said file in a text editor. See More

Top Pro

Any key can be mapped to any function

Using the Preferences Menu, you can set up hotkeys to map virtually any action you can think of to a single key or a combination of them. This is extremely helpful as it allows you to use shortcuts to edit commands you are typing in the terminal and while most terminal emulators have shortcuts for this sort of thing, few of them let you define your own. See More

See All

29 Other Options Considered

Visual Studio Code

Top Pro

Ready to use out of the box

You don't need to configure and add plugins before being productive. However, you can add plugins if needed but for the basics you're well covered. See More

Top Con

Very bad auto import

Eric Budd's Experience

I love this editor! It just works. Fast, lots of supported languages and you can run scripts/programs without opening a separate terminal. Great for Python. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, macOS, Linux

License:MIT

Supported remote file editing protocols:ssh

Cross Platform:Yes

See All Specs

Top Pro

Updated frequently

There's a new release of Visual Studio Code every month. If you are one of the insiders then releases are daily. See More

Top Con

Memory hog

Allegedly, VS Code is "lightweight". Yet, running multiple instances of it at once, you may get many "out of memory" messages from Windows despite 16 GB RAM. (While of course also running other things. The point is the comparison with some other IDEs/editors where running them alongside the same number of other applications doesn't cause Windows to run out of memory) See More

UnderstandingCariocecus's Experience

Best code editor i have used so far. Have been using atom before but this is definitely better. See More

Top Pro

IntelliSense is great

VS Code offers a great autocomplete for javascript which in other IDEs is usually not working so well because of the way the language is built (doesn't have static typing). See More

Top Con

Yet another web browser in a box app

No thanks. See More

DependableInuus's Experience

Best text edit for me See More

Top Pro

Integrated Git

VS Code comes with built in Git support. This including viewing diffs, stage files, commit, push, pull and more. See More

SophisticatedFrigg's Experience

it is the best ice out there See More

Top Pro

Fast and powerful

VS-Code has the speed of Sublime and the power of WebStorm. Perhaps this is the best software that Microsoft has ever created. See More

Top Pro

Integrated terminal

There's no need to press alt+tab to go to a terminal: it is directly integrated into the editor. See More

Top Pro

Great performance

For a 'wrapped' web-based application, Visual Studio Code performs very well. See More

Top Pro

Extendable through plugins

Visual Studio Code comes fairly complete out of the box, but there are many plugins available to extend its functionality. See More

Top Pro

Embedded Git control

Visual Studio Code has integrated Git control, guaranteeing speed, data integrity, and support for distributed, non-linear workflows. See More

Top Pro

Huge community behind it

The ease of getting assistance and finding tutorials is increasing as the community grows. See More

Top Pro

JavaScript IntelliSense support

JavaScript IntelliSense allows Visual Studio Code to provide you with useful hints and auto-completion features while you code. See More

Top Pro

It has gotten really good

All it takes is one stop for all the features many people need. See More

Top Pro

TypeScript integration

There is very solid TypeScript integration in Visual Studio Code. Both are developed by Microsoft and VSC itself is written in TypeScript. See More

Top Pro

Python support

Excellent Python plugin, originally created by Don Jayamanne, now hired by Microsoft to extend and maintain the extension. See More

Top Pro

ESLint integration

ESLint integrates great. You can define your rules trough .eslintrc.* as usual and vs code will autofix your code on save. So your code is always in style. See More

Top Pro

Libre/open source

Released under the MIT License. See More

Top Pro

Good dark theme

"workbench.colorTheme": "Default High Contrast" is easy on the eyes and great with various rainbow pair indicator plugins. See More

Top Pro

Integrated debugging

VSC includes debugging tools for Node.js, TypeScript, and JavaScript. See More

Top Pro

JS typechecking

It leverages TypeScript compiler functionality to statically type check JS (type inference, JSDoc types) with "javascript.implicitProjectConfig.checkJs": true option. See More

Top Pro

Extendable through plug-ins

Visual Studio Code comes fairly complete out of the box, but there are many plug-ins available to extend its functionality. See More

Top Pro

Good support for new Emmet syntax

Top Pro

Integrated task runners

Task runners display lists of available tasks and performing these tasks is as simple as a click of the mouse. See More

Top Pro

Inline definition picking and usages finding

These features allow you to have a glance at code without opening it as a whole in a separate tab. Moreover, editing is allowed. See More

Top Pro

Custom snippets support

Snippets are templates that will insert text for you and adapt it to their context, and in VSC they are highly customizable. See More

Top Pro

Support RTL languages

It supports pretty web rtl languages like arabic languages when most of other editors don't support it. See More

Top Pro

High fidelity C# plugin

The Omnisharp plugin is very powerful providing full sln, csproj, and project.json support. See More

See All

Sublime Text

Top Pro

Powerful

Can view and edit massive files (10k+ lines) smoothly. See More

Top Con

Paid

Although paying for something good is far from a Con, having the competition this editor has and still have to pay for it is definitely a Con. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows; macOS; Linux

License:Proprietary

Supported remote file editing protocols:FTP (plug-in); SSH (plug-in)

Collaborative editing:No

See All Specs

Top Pro

Extensive package repository

Top Con

Depricated

Go for VisualStudio Code. See More

Top Pro

Python API

The Python API used by Sublime for creating new commands and packages is quite easy to learn and use. See More

Top Con

Slow development

While development has yet to stop on Sublime Text, it is significantly slower than its competitors Atom, VSCode, and others. See More

Top Pro

Very fast

Sublime is quick to start and never slows down. The UI is always responsive and you know what is happening in the background. See More

Top Con

Nag screens

Top Pro

Has tons of plugins available

Top Con

Non-native Mac app

It doesn't include a lot of the functionality (system hooks) and look and feel of a first class Mac app. See More

Top Pro

Offers Command Palette

Command Palette allows for fuzzy searching all available settings, snippets, etc. See More

Top Con

Infrequently updated

Development has stalled on this editor. See More

Top Pro

Multi-line select and editing

Multiple cursors and column selection allows for versatile ways of editing. ctrl + d will select the current word and each time the command is repeated, it adds the next occurrence of the word to the selection. ctrl + click or middle-mouse click will place another cursor in the place that's clicked. Cursors can then be controlled together. This also permits selecting vertically. ctrl + shift + l will place a cursor on every highlighted line. See More

Top Pro

Comfortable to work with

Sublime Text has a minimap on the side that provides a top-down view of the file and keyboard shortcuts for most actions. It also supports a large number of languages and general text editing features out of the box. See More

See All

Tower

Top Pro

Beautiful

I think Tower looks just so much better, cleaner than other git apps. Even if it doesn't you make work faster, it sure is a pleasure to use and look at. See More

Top Con

Not free/libre

This application is proprietary, and thus cannot be modified or freely distributed. See More

Vikram Bhaskar's Experience

Tower has the best UI experience coupled with the ability to smoothy open multiple projects or organise them into project folders and some of the best addons See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Mac

Features:Pull Requests, Interactive Rebase, Git-Flow, Dark Mode, Undo, Quick Actions, Image Diffing, Reflog, Drag & Drop, User Profiles

Pricing:FREE, $69/year for Basic, $99/year for Pro, $149/year for Enterprise

Free Version:Yes, for students, teachers, schools, universities, coding bootcamps etc.

See All Specs

Top Pro

Simple

Tower was the first GUI for git that made sense to me, and I've come to love it's intuitive way of staging and committing parts of the changes in the working directory. See More

Top Con

No git-flow

It lacks in-app git-flow support. See More

Top Pro

Pretty, modern-looking user interface

T2 has a good-looking interface and consists of 3 main views - services, repositories and repository. Services view for managing integrations with hosting services like GitHub, Bitbucket and Beanstalk. Repositories view for organizing local and remote repositories into folders and getting general overview about them. Repo view that consists of two main subviews: Working copy view shows modified files and their diff and allows wrapping up changes in a commit. History shows commits alongside metadata and projects file structure. Additionally, it allows performing various tasks such as merging branches via drag & drop, search allows searching by message, commit hash, author, committer and file and there's a quick open that allows fuzzy-searching for folder names. See More

Top Pro

Very polished user interface

Top Pro

Offers a visual way to solve conflicts

T2 shows conflicting files, their authors and the commit that made changes. It then allows selecting which files should be used in the final result. See More

Top Pro

Git-flow integration

Git-flow provide a consistent development process by defining a strict branching model that is great for managing large projects. T2 allows setting up and integrating into repos that follow this model. See More

See All

MacDown

Top Pro

Free and open source

MacDown is a free and open source editor influenced by Mou. It's released under the MIT license. See More

Top Con

The Markdown preview is rather heavy on the CPU

The Markdown preview needs a lot of resources to keep rendering on-the-fly after each keystroke. A single keystroke in the editor panel may trigger up to 5 seconds of max-CPU usage. See More

Specs

Top Pro

Real-time split-screen preview

MacDown's main view is split into two panels. The user types on the left and the Markdown is rendered on the fly in the right panel. This helps users to better understand the way they are formatting their document. See More

Top Con

Not very versatile

MacDown is not very powerful or versatile. It's not customizable or extendable. This is what makes it so simple, but it's not for people who want more from their tools. See More

Top Pro

Markdown previews can be customized with CSS

You can use a CSS file to customize the rendered output and the file preview you are working on will display the rendered Markdown with the custom CSS styling on top. See More

Top Pro

Supports syntax highlighting in fenced code blocks

MacDown has syntax highlighting support for various languages when writing code in fenced code blocks. See More

Top Pro

Support for GFM

Top Pro

Ideal for day-to-day programmers' work and MarkDown novices alike

Using MacDown for the notorious README.md use case gets you going without reading any manual or requiring any configuration values. Think of it as a sort of TextEdit for MarkDown files. Thus its shortcomings - neither powerful nor versatile - turn out to be a PRO for novices trying to jump on the MarkDown bandwagon. Open its help and you'll immediately find yourself editing the MacDown's MarkDown help file, a MarkDown primer with some MacDown menus and configuration added. See More

Top Pro

Good auto-completion

MacDown has a good built-in auto-completion engine for Markdown symbols. See More

See All

Spacemacs

Top Pro

Use SPACE bar as leader

Spacemacs got its name from the fact that it is using by default the space bar as a leader key. The key was chosen because it is easy to press and to hopefully lower the risk of RSI. See More

Top Con

High CPU and unresponsive at times

There are occasions when Spacemacs would suddenly consume a LOT of CPU and at other times would become completely unresponsive. Restarting Spacemacs would always fix it for a while. It was just really unstable and this was only 6 months or so ago. May be fixed in newer versions. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, MacOS, Linux

License:GPLv3

Supported remote file editing protocols:Yes

Collaborative editing:plug-in

See All Specs

Top Pro

Great support from the community

The community is very active and there is a welcoming gitter chat to ask for questions. See More

Top Con

Functionality layers of complicate configuration

To configure spacemacs, settings for Emacs/Evil/Spacemacs may need editing. Its not always clear which need to be changed or how to change settings globally, sometimes hooks are needed, other time spacemacs provides options. See More

Top Pro

Mnemonic and consistent key bindings

Key bindings are organized in mnemonic namespaces, for instance buffer actions are under b, file actions under f, project actions under p, search actions under s etc... Key bindings are consistent across the whole distribution thanks to a set of conventions. See More

Top Con

Slow startup time

Although configuration is heavily lazy loaded, the starting time of Spacemacs is usually between two and five seconds. Emacs can be run as a daemon though which reduces the clients startup time to a few milliseconds. See More

Top Pro

Combines the best parts of Vi and Emacs

Spacemacs combines the Emacs platform (with the full power of the Emacs plugin ecosystem) and the Vi keybindings in the same box. See More

Top Pro

Cross-platform

Emacs runs on Gnu/Linux, Mac OS X, and Windows. See More

Top Pro

Simple but powerful configuration architecture

At the heart of Spacemacs, the configuration layers group packages configuration into semantic units that can be toggled on and off. The architecture is simple but powerful allowing to easily manage configuration dependencies between hundreds of packages. See More

Top Pro

Above average documentation quality

Documentation is mandatory for each new configuration layers and can be accessed directly within the editor in Org format. See More

Top Pro

Community-driven configuration

Spacemacs is the biggest community-driven Emacs starter-kit. See More

Top Pro

Gradual learning curve

Evil package is a first class citizen, Spacemacs embraces it from day one. Evil package allows VIm users to be productive very quickly while still allowing regular Emacs users to use Spacemacs. See More

Top Pro

Fast-paced development

New functionalities and fixes are added every day and release cycles are short. See More

See All

SourceTree

Top Pro

Free

Free to use without registration. After 30 days, it requires registration (which is also free). See More

Top Con

Obscures the fundamentals of git

In my experience, people who rely on this tool struggle to understand how git actually works. Much better to simply use the command line, and then perhaps move to this utility after you have that mastered. (Side note: I've never known a developer who moved to SourceTree after learning git on the command line.) See More

Marc-André Appel's Experience

No fuss, gets to the point, offers all I need when I'm in the mood for a GUI See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, macOS

Price:Free

Top Pro

Consistent UI across platforms

SourceTree is great for working in a cross-platform environment as it has the exact same UI on Windows as it has on OS X. See More

Top Con

Information density can be a bit much

It's possible to be overwhelmed with the information density presented in Sourcetree. Especially in history view since it includes a lot of data presented in various ways. It's great for getting a comprehensive overview of everything that's happening in one place, but it can take some getting used. See More

Top Pro

Simple yet powerful

SourceTree allows you to do advanced Git operations while making them straight-forward for those who are still adjusting to Git. See More

Top Pro

Informative branch visualisation

In addition to color-coded branches and icons that tell if a file has been added, removed or modified, Sourcetree also displays the number of commits that are ahead and behind remote repo. See More

Top Pro

Comprehensive layout

SourceTree has three main repository views: file status, history, and search. File status view shows status of currently selected repo. It's split into two areas - file list and diff-view. History view tracks changes made to the currently selected repository. It's divided into three sections. The top section has a graph with progression of commits, branches, and merges. The bottom section shows commit details, files changed, and differences committed. Search view allows looking up commit messages, users, files changes, branches, and commit SHA. There's also a toolbar at the top that allows switching between the three views, as well as giving access to git commands (such as commit, checkout, reset, stash, add, remove, fetch, pull, push, branch, merge, and tag). See More

Top Pro

Allows chunks and lines selection during commit

SourceTree automatically splits the changes to be committed into chunks allowing committing (or discarding) each chunk separately. Furthermore, the user can even select specific lines. This greatly increases the flexibility of the user in that matter. See More

Top Pro

Built-in Git-flow and Hg-flow support

Git-flow and Hg-flow provide a consistent development process by defining a strict branching model that is great for managing large projects. Sourcetree allows setting up and integrating into repos that follow this model. Clicking the Git-flow / Hg-flow toolbar button will give you access to actions for starting or finishing features, releases or hotfixes depending on current state of repository. See More

Top Pro

Quick setup

Once installed, SourceTree will automatically try to look for and set up repos that are worked on. SourceTree will also detect if git-flow is used and what is the current development state as long as default git-flow branch names are used. The software tracks all relevant repositories in the bookmark's window. Repositories can be added to the list by creating new ones, adding a local folder, supplying a clone URL or integrating with remote services such as Bitbucket or GitHub. See More

Top Pro

Supports Git, Mercurial, and Subversion

Allows managing Git & Mercurial repos side by side. It even allows Subversion interoperability via git-svn or hgsubversion plugins which set up a bridge between either Git and SVN or Mercurial and SVN respectively. See More

Top Pro

Informative branch visualization

In addition to color-coded branches and icons that tell if a file has been added, removed or modified, SourceTree also displays the number of commits that are ahead and behind the remote branch. See More

Top Pro

Built-in integration with Stash and Bitbucket

Sourcetree integrates with repositories hosted on Bitbucket, Stash, GitHub, and Kiln. See More

See All

TablePlus

Top Pro

Native, beautiful and friendly

TablePlus is a native app which helps you easily edit database data and structure. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Top Pro

Customizable appearance

TablePlus' smartly designed interface not only gives you powerful functions, but also allows you to personalize your database workspace by changing themes and font sizes. Our shortcut keys also help you work faster and be more efficient. See More

Top Pro

Multi-tabs & code review

TablePlus supports multi-tab and multi-window viewing, as well as generates code review whenever you make a change to your database. See More

Top Pro

Powerful SQL editor

Equipped with the following features: •Highlight syntax •Indent SQL Command •Split Results into Tabs •Save favorite SQL to snippet •Customize font size See More

Top Pro

It's fast

Top Pro

Clean interface

Unlike many database editors, TablePlus is simple and clean. Just enough. Think SequelPro, but for many databases. See More

See All

Mou

Top Con

Abandoned

Raised funds and abandoned the project. See More

Specs

Postman

Top Pro

Flexible and powerful

Can easily add/remove parameters, headers, tests and more. Displays all the info you would want in a partitioned way so you can track exactly what you want. Able to save request and run them in bulk for testing real-user scenarios very efficiently. See More

Specs

Platforms:Windows, Linux, Mac

Dark Theme:Yes

Hollywood formatting:Yes

SSL certificate verification:Yes

Top Pro

Clear interface

The interface of the program is clean and intuitive. Almost all features are accessible through a single click. See More

Top Pro

Free

Top Pro

Dark theme

The app has a dark theme. See More

Top Pro

Excellent user feedback loop

Postman is very responsive to users and listens to user feedback. See More

Top Pro

Two versions of apps are available

Packaged app and an in-browser app are available for Google Chrome. See More

See All

PyCharm

Top Pro

Great for navigating large codebases

PyCharm has amazing code navigation implementations. It supports both goto symbol and goto declaration. The former finds classes, variables, functions, etc by name. While the latter is used by moving the cursor on top of a symbol and by using the mouse or a keyboard combination it finds the declaration of that symbol and takes you there. Both of these features are extremely helpful when consulting large code-bases and when trying to understand an API written by someone else. See More

egberts's Experience

PyCharm is an awesome Integrated Development Environment tool; the only smalll downside is that it uses Java to startup and with it along some memory hogging characteristics; however, the benefits far outweight this tiny downside. Auto-complete your programming typing and a deep lookup of error messages makes this life so much easier. See More

Specs

Cross Platform:Windows, macOS, Linux, FreeBSD

Multi Language Support:Yes

Auto Complete:Yes

Bracket Matching:Yes

See All Specs

Top Pro

Free student access to Professional Edition

With a valid .edu address students can register to use the Professional edition and enjoy all the perks of the full paid version for free. Though it should be mentioned that the with the free student acess you cannot use PyCharm for any commercial purposes, even accepting donations for an open source project. See More

Top Pro

Vim mode for people used to Vim commands

IdeaVim supports motion keys, insert mode commands, marks, registers, visual mode commands, vim regexps, key mapping, macros, digraphs, some ex and :set commands. You can find a full comparison in the IdeaVim reference manual. See More

Top Pro

Free version available

There's a community edition (with limited features) that's free to use. You can also get a 30-day trial of the Professional edition. See More

See All

Coda 2

Top Pro

Real IDE with all the benefits

Coda 2 comprises all you would expect from an IDE: it supports multiple languages (including all the standards); it performs autocomplete of project names, as well as language functions; it supports SVN and GIT; it has good support for plugins (or you can write your own); it has a configurable editor; and it has a built-in preview. See More

Top Con

Defective UI

There are several things in Coda that simply don't work, and never have. For instance, the root directory for your local and remote files is simply not honored. For every project, you can specify the root directory for its files. But when you open the project in Coda, it doesn't go there. The file browser just shows whatever the last directory was that you were using, and will write files to the wrong place. Thus, it defeats the purpose of setting the home directory in the first place. Also, splitting the editor doesn't work. If you've done any programming, you know how important it is to be able to view two files simultaneously. Coda fails to do this, with a bizarre insistence on making the two panes dependent on each other. See More

Specs

Platforms:macOS, iOS

See All

GitHub for Mac

Top Con

No support for commit signing

While Github itself offers full support and UI decorators for cryptographically signed commits, the Mac client does not support it, and errors out when trying to commit anything if you have signing enabled. See More

Top Pro

Great GUI for Github

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Homebrew

Top Pro

Quick access to a large repository of open source software

Homebrew makes it easy for people to quickly install any open source software (that is contained within the apps repositories) for Mac. See More

Top Con

Installing into /usr/local means frequent collisions with 3rd party programs

Nathanial McConnell's Experience

Essential. Period. See More

Specs

Supported platforms:macOS

Packages:4635

Requires sudo:no

Top Pro

Easy to setup and use

Once installed, you control Homebrew using the brew command. You can find packages using brew search, install them using brew install and remove them using brew uninstall. See More

Top Con

Command line tools for XCode required

Once xcode is installed you can install Homebrew, including new(er)/different versions of most of the build stuff that xcode-select installed, like a newer gcc, newer git, etc. See More

Marc-André Appel's Experience

I always get what I need, fast from the CLI See More

Top Pro

Recipes are simple and easy to use

The recipes themselves are Ruby scripts and are small, simple to understand and easy to create and modify. See More

Top Con

May cause issues when trying to create symlinks or installing in places where SIP has changed permissions

One of the things to like about Homebrew is that it refuses to run things under sudo most of the time. This is a great policy, but it causes issues when you want to create symlinks or install in places that SIP has changed permissions on. (Alternatively, you could install Homebrew somewhere other than /usr/local, but that might break various packages that depend on having stuff in and relative to /usr/local/.) See More

Top Pro

Does not require using sudo

One of the things to like about Homebrew is that it refuses to run things under sudo most of the time. This is a great policy, but it causes issues when you want to create symlinks or install in places that SIP has changed permissions on. See More

Top Pro

Less maintenance than Macports

Macports seems to be able to get into a bad state where new packages are unable to be installed, or installed software was unable to be updated. This simply hasn't happened with Homebrew. In addition to not having to deal with corruption problems, Homebrew installs packages in userland. Not requiring root to install software is a big win. See More

Top Pro

Unintrusive

Homebrew installs packages to their own directory and then symlinks their files into /usr/local. Homebrew won’t install files outside its prefix, and you can place a Homebrew installation wherever you like. See More

Top Pro

Wide userbase

Details and resolutions abound for almost every issue encountered. See More

Top Pro

Free and open source

Top Pro

Builds quickly and requires few dependencies

Homebrew as much as possible uses already existing libraries and tools to install software thus making builds quick and requiring few dependencies. See More

Top Pro

Open Source

See All

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The Best 2 of 31 OptionsWhy?

My Recommendation for Homebrew

My Recommendation for Homebrew

Quick access to a large repository of open source software

Installing into /usr/local means frequent collisions with 3rd party programs

Easy to setup and use

Command line tools for XCode required

Recipes are simple and easy to use

May cause issues when trying to create symlinks or installing in places where SIP has changed permissions

Does not require using sudo

Less maintenance than Macports

Unintrusive

Wide userbase

Free and open source

Builds quickly and requires few dependencies

Open Source

My Recommendation for iTerm2

My Recommendation for iTerm2

Extremely customizable

Not necessary

Split Panes

Complete out of the box

Customization

tmux integration

Open paths and URLs with command-click

Active maintainers

You only need to type in commands once

Completely free and open source

Can be configured as a drop-down terminal

Supported by many applications as a terminal app selection

Supports mouse actions

Hi-color support

Autocomplete is built-in

Fine tuning for fonts

Can immediately open files inside a text editor

Any key can be mapped to any function

29 Other Options Considered

My Recommendation for Visual Studio Code

My Recommendation for Visual Studio Code

Ready to use out of the box

Very bad auto import

Updated frequently

Memory hog

IntelliSense is great

Yet another web browser in a box app

Integrated Git

Fast and powerful

Integrated terminal

Great performance

Extendable through plugins

Embedded Git control

Huge community behind it

JavaScript IntelliSense support

It has gotten really good

TypeScript integration

Python support

ESLint integration

Libre/open source

Good dark theme

Integrated debugging

JS typechecking

Extendable through plug-ins

Good support for new Emmet syntax

Integrated task runners

Inline definition picking and usages finding

Custom snippets support

Support RTL languages

High fidelity C# plugin

My Recommendation for Sublime Text

My Recommendation for Sublime Text

Powerful

Paid

Extensive package repository

Depricated

Python API

Slow development

Very fast

Nag screens

Has tons of plugins available

Non-native Mac app