Add to Chrome
Add to Edge
Add to Firefox
Add to Opera
Add to Brave
Add to SafariWhen comparing MacPorts vs Moom, the Slant community recommends Moom for most people. In the question“What are the best power user tools for macOS?” Moom is ranked 17th while MacPorts is ranked 41st. The most important reason people chose Moom is:
Moom comes with many preset keyboard shortcuts. The user can go into the graphical settings of the app and change any one of them to a different combination of keys.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Easy to use
Detailed instructions on the homepage are easy to follow. Official GUI app is also available
Pro Provides a consistent experience across OS X versions
MacPorts eschews Apple-supplied libraries and links sources against its own making sure that the experience is the same regardless of what OS X version is used.
Pro Generally very up to date
MacPorts generally gets new software soon after it's available. This way users will not have to worry if their software is up to date.
Pro Nice variants system
MacPorts has a variants system that allows customizing builds with author provided options.
Pro Has many more packages than its competitors
As of this writing, 20K packages. 3 to 5x more than other current package managers.
Pro Requires SUDO to install apps
No need to worry if some rogue app will change your binaries or configuration.
Pro Download libraries instead of relying on Apple's caprices
Considering just how often Apple breaks things, any reduplication of of Apple-supplied libraries with the canonical sources is an asset.
Pro Fast
Written in Tcl & C, it's generally significantly faster than the competition. Tcl is also quite readable and comparable to Ruby, so it's also friendly to newcomers.
Pro Supports older Mac operating systems
Homebrew dropped support for old Macs. MacPorts still supports them.
Pro MacPorts is a native application: C + TCL
No need to install Ruby, or any other programming language.
Pro More packages than competition
Pro Apple Silicon Ready
With Apple moving over to its own silicon, macports has been ready for the move to ARM since 2.6.4
Pro Initially started and developed by Apple employees and supported by Apple itself
Reading the story behind MacPorts, it is the only one that was developed by Apple by an Apple employee. In fact it is the same person that was responsible for creating the FreeBSD port system.
Pro Great support for older systems
Pro Most of the available packages work
For example, trying to install Finch using Pkgsrc doesn't work, while installing it using MacPorts works perfectly. Finch isn't even on Homebrew's radar.
Pro Customizable keyboard shortucts
Moom comes with many preset keyboard shortcuts. The user can go into the graphical settings of the app and change any one of them to a different combination of keys.
Pro You can save tiling window position and size
Users can set window position and size themselves, allowing for a great way to set up a tiling window experience.
Pro Windows can be snapped to the edges of the screen
In addition to using the grid or the overlay, Moom can move and zoom windows by dragging them to screen edges.
Pro Simple customization
While you can set keyboard shortcuts, Moom has a very easy-to-use GUI and GUI-based customization features to help you get going right away.
Pro Adds a zoom button for all apps
Moom adds an overlay zoom button to the corner of all apps which allows any app to go full screen or be placed to certain sections of the screen (such as the top, bottom, or sides). This works even on apps that do not normally allow for full screen views.
Pro Multi-monitor support
Moom has excellent support for multi-monitor setups. You can drag a window to the edge of your screen into another monitor and snap it there.
Cons
Con New Packages and Updates take time
Macports isn't the first choice for developers producing new packages or binaries for macOS. Nor is it the fastest in getting updates. But in general, it usually is one of the most up to date and will be updated eventually. Some would see this as a con in comparison to Homebrew.
Con Bad at limiting dependencies
MacPorts has a habit of pulling very specific versions of dependencies for each package. It downloads different version of already existing dependencies even in cases where the existing dependency version would have worked seamlessly.
Con Downloads unneeded libraries duplicating functionality already provided by Apple's libraries
As MacPorts eschews Apple-supplied libraries and links sources against its own a large duplication of functionality across MacPorts and Apple libraries can be found.
Con Requires root permissions (sudo) for installation of packages
A really good security feature, but some see it as a con.
Con UI for settings can be confusing
The settings for the app are pretty jumbled and are hard to get a grip of, especially for first time users. While all the settings one would need are there, they are difficult to find or understand, which requires a good bit of playing around with the settings in order to get a feel for them and what they offer.
Con Not free
Moom is not free: it costs $9.99.
Con Non customisable popover
The pop over is not customisable and has two presets which are odd for instance two presents are two split windows horizontally.
Con Two steps needed, while some tools only need one
