When comparing Conda 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 Conda is ranked 5th. The most important reason people chose Homebrew Cask is:
Homebrew Cask adds functionality to Homebrew such as allowing downloads of commercial licensed apps.
Specs
Ranked in these QuestionsQuestion Ranking
Pros
Pro Binary installs
They are fast and reliable as they do not need to compile before installation.
Pro Allows for multiple environments
It is great for developers since you can easily switch between complete environments with different versions of packages, for testing and development.
Pro Open source
Conda is open source and on Github, so if you see something wrong you can fix it and submit a patch.
Pro Extends Homebrew
Homebrew Cask adds functionality to Homebrew such as allowing downloads of commercial licensed apps.
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
Cons
Con Doesn't have everything
Conda is relatively new and has a smaller user-base, so the set of packages available is limited.
Con No way to resume downloads
Any download that is canceled or interrupted will have to be started over from the beginning as there is no built in solution for resuming downloads.
Con Installs huge collection of default unneeded libraries
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.