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Add to SafariWhen comparing Alfred vs Homebrew, the Slant community recommends Homebrew for most people. In the question“What are the best power user tools for macOS?” Homebrew is ranked 2nd while Alfred is ranked 5th. The most important reason people chose Homebrew is:
Homebrew makes it easy for people to quickly install any open source software (that is contained within the apps repositories) for Mac.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro Can create custom automated workflows
Allows the creation of automated workflows by connecting keywords, hotkeys and actions together without writing code.
Pro Full keyboard controls
You can do everything using just the keyboard.
Pro Built-in calculator
Alfred is able to handle simple mathematical commands and more extensive expressions alike. Pressing Enter copies the result to the clipboard.
Pro Integrates with 1Password
Alfred allows getting secure and fast access to your 1Password 1Click bookmarks.
Pro Lightweight and smooth
Alfred is a lightweight application for OS X and runs smoothly, even on older devices.
Pro Versatile search
Quickly search for files, applications and web services from the same input.
Pro Productivity booster
Helps speed up your working day one shortcut at a time.
Pro Clipboard history
Alfred offers a clipboard with an extensive history for quick access to your copied text, images and links.
Pro Entry of everything
Pro Allows theming
Alfred allows adjusting colors, fonts, sizes and more to create new themes.
Pro Offers both a free version and a paid version available
The paid version is more customizable, but the free version is still very powerful.
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.
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.
Pro Open Source
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.
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.
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.
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.
Pro Homebrew tries very hard to use existing tools and libraries
Homebrew’s recipes try very hard to use the existing tools and libraries in OS/X, so they tend to build much faster and require fewer dependent libraries.
Cons
Con Many features require the $25 powerpack add-on
Features like custom workflows, clipboard history, 1Password integrations and others require the powerpack add-on.
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/.)
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.
Con Relies on outdated system libs
