Here’s the Deal

Fink vs Homebrew Cask

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When comparing Fink vs Homebrew Cask, the Slant community recommends Homebrew Cask for most people. In the question“What are the best Mac package managers?” Homebrew Cask is ranked 2nd while Fink is ranked 8th. The most important reason people chose Homebrew Cask is:

Homebrew Cask adds functionality to Homebrew such as allowing downloads of commercial licensed apps.

Specs

packages12737

packages4051

requires sudono

Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking

Common Questions

What are the best Mac package managers?

Fink

Homebrew Cask

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
Extends Homebrew

Homebrew Cask adds functionality to Homebrew such as allowing downloads of commercial licensed apps.

Pro
Active project

The project is very active, with commits almost daily and plenty of conversation in issues. This means that the app will see bugs fixed and possibly new features added.

Pro
"Zap" application configuration

this is an interesting feature allowing user to remove application configuration leftowers

Pro
Manage graphical applications through the command line

Homebrew Cask allows you to install graphical applications through the command line, rather than having to go through the standard installation process.

E.g. brew cask install google-chrome

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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Pre-compiled packages are often out of date

It happens often that the user will come across out of date, pre-compiled packages.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
Cask update is usually manual

This defeats the purpose of the packet manager.

Con
Requires Xcode

Homebrew Cask requires that Xcode is installed, which may be more work than what some want to spend on configuring this app.

Con
Software no longer needed by anything (orphans) is hard to delete

Con
The developers are hostile to the users reporting issues

Con
Silently spies on the user by default

See here.

Con
Duplicate apps found in brew may cause issue

There are warnings provided that apps found in brew should not be installed with brew cask (and vice versa). While the user is warned of this, mistakes can happen, which would be better to just see them avoided all together by not supplying duplicate apps.