What are the best developer tools for Mac OSX?

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score 115 · Accepted Answer

Homebrew

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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

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

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 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

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 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

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

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

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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

Does not require using sudo

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

Recipes are simple and easy to use

Unintrusive

Wide userbase

Free and open source

Less maintenance than Macports

Builds quickly and requires few dependencies

Open Source

My Recommendation for iTerm2

My Recommendation for iTerm2

Extremely customizable

Not necessary

Open paths and URLs with command-click

Split Panes

Complete out of the box

Customization

Active maintainers

You only need to type in commands once

tmux integration

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 Sublime Text

My Recommendation for Sublime Text

Powerful

Paid

Extensive package repository

Slow development

Python API

Nag screens

Very fast

Non-native Mac app

Has tons of plugins available

Infrequently updated

Offers Command Palette

Multi-line select and editing

Comfortable to work with

My Recommendation for Visual Studio Code

My Recommendation for Visual Studio Code

Ready to use out of the box

Memory hog

IntelliSense is great

Yet another web browser in a box app

Updated frequently

Fast and powerful

Great performance

Integrated Git

Integrated terminal

Extendable through plugins

Embedded Git control

JavaScript IntelliSense support

Python support

ESLint integration

Libre/open source

Huge community behind it

Integrated debugging

JS typechecking

Extendable through plug-ins

Good support for new Emmet syntax

Integrated task runners

TypeScript integration

It has gotten really good

Good dark theme

Inline definition picking and usages finding

Custom snippets support