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Add to SafariWhen comparing Fink vs pkgsrc, the Slant community recommends pkgsrc for most people. In the question“What are the best Mac package managers?” pkgsrc is ranked 6th while Fink is ranked 8th. The most important reason people chose pkgsrc is:
pkgin aims to be a tool similar to apt/yum for managing pkgsrc binaries by relying on pkg_summary for installing, removing and upgrading packages and dependencies, using a remote repo.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Will be familiar to apt-get users
Fink is based on apt-get making the transition to anyone used to Debian-based environments easier.
Pro Install from source
Pro Packages provided as binaries
Installed applications don't need to be compiled and built on the system.
Pro pkgin is an apt-like tools for installing binaries from pkgsrc
pkgin aims to be a tool similar to apt/yum for managing pkgsrc binaries by relying on pkg_summary for installing, removing and upgrading packages and dependencies, using a remote repo.
Pro Adapted for use on over a dozen different operating systems
Has been adopted to be used on several Unix-like operating systems and Windows. It's also the default package manager of DragonflyBSD and of the (now discounted) Bluewall Linux distro.
Pro Installs and works in the same way as MacPorts
Installs its own dependencies which means that it is very secure. Cannot install anything unless you use the "sudo" command which is in keeping with the Unix philosophy.
Pro Both binary packages and source build possible
Fast software installation is possible by using binary packages. It's also easy to build from source which allows for different compile-time options (like different UI backends) as well as gaining access to pre-release versions of software in certain cases.
Pro Offering tooling for backporting fixes
Backporting fixes can be done by cherry-picking updates from a newer branch (pkgsrc is released every 3 months) and creating a package. Sometimes bugs need to be fixed for production and there is neither a fix in newer pkgsrc nor the softwares upstream. So pkgsrc has tools like pkgdiff, mkpatches, etc. that help with developing patches and building binary packages from that. A bit of documentation about that process can be found here.
Pro Does not need Xcode command line tools or Xcode.
This means that you can install it fresh on a new installation of MacOS and have all your favorite apps installed right from the start.
Pro Works easily with Ansible
Can be used from within Ansible to install packages on macOS.
Pro Easy installation if you use 3rd party scripts
This one works brilliantly.
Cons
Con Doesn't support newer macOS versions
Doesn't support macOS Big Sur or Monterey. Says it's "coming soon."
Con Pre-compiled packages are often out of date
It happens often that the user will come across out of date, pre-compiled packages. This can impede on using new features released in apps due to using older releases.
Con Relatively complicated setup and installation
Installing and setting pkgsrc up is a bit more complicated than in other package managers where it often consists in running a single script.
Con Not so broadly used on MacOS as compared with MacPorts
You do not hear about Pkgsrc as openly as you hear the words "HomeBrew" or "MacPorts".
Con Outdated packages
Some packages are outdated.
Con Can't install some packages
Even building well known packages (except MacPorts) from source using the ports can fail.
