When comparing CodeKit vs Hazel, the Slant community recommends Hazel for most people. In the question“What are the best power user tools for macOS?” Hazel is ranked 14th while CodeKit is ranked 18th. The most important reason people chose Hazel is:
Hazel watches whatever folders you tell it to, automatically organizing your files according to the rules you create. Have Hazel move files around based on name, date, type, what site/email address it came from (Safari and Mail only) and much more. Automatically put your music in your Music folder, movies in Movies. Keep your downloads off the desktop and put them where they are supposed to be.
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Pros
Pro Everything is set up for you
Everything you need to get a project started is included with CodeKit. Thanks to the professional support, different components of the workflow pipeline are guaranteed to play nicely with each other without you needing to do the research on how to configure them.
More advanced features that may require extra configuration to set up with other workflow wrappers are set up out of the box in CodeKit, like automatic browser updating, linting, and source maps.
Pro Provides a clean and modern GUI
CodeKit has a clean and intuitive graphical user interface out of the box. Most other tools in this category run as command line utilities or require unsupported third-party plugins to run with a GUI.
The CodeKit GUI makes it easier to navigate and manage the various components of your project with helpful UIs like dropdowns, and views that provide extra details without having to run a separate command.
Pro Live browser updating built in
CodeKit has live updating built in and will update monitored files across multiple browsers and devices, and refresh CSS without a new page load. Other workflow wrappers have live updating, but they require extra configuration. With CodeKit, everything is set up for you so you can get it up and running in no time at all.
Pro Interactively define how files compile with a GUI
You can navigate your project directory, and use a menu form to set up how it gets compiled without needing to read configuration documentation, or deal with configuration errors. On top of that, file watching and recompilation is built in with no extra configuration needed.
Pro Great value for money
At a one time cost of $29, it's a great deal considering how powerful and easy to use it is.
Pro Visual package management with Bower
CodeKit provides a clean GUI for Bower that makes it easier to navigate and get information about modules without having to deal with a command line interface.
Pro Connects with MAMP
You can use it to, for example, live-update server-side PHP by establishing a connection with your local MAMP server.
Pro Don't have to worry about vendor prefixes due to Autoprefixer support
Autoprefixer automagically adds vendor prefixes based on latest information.
Pro Reduces size of compressed images
CodeKit provides a powerful tool to automatically reduce the size of compressed images and production web code.
Pro Live pre-processor and script compilation
CodeKit supports live compilation of Less, Sass, Stylus, Jade, Haml, Slim, CoffeeScript, JavaScript and Compass including automatic debugging and minification.
Pro Has over 6k componenets
Install 6,000+ Bower components with a single click: Bootstrap, jQuery, Modernizr, Zurb Foundation, even WordPress.
Pro Automatically cleans up and maintains folders
Hazel watches whatever folders you tell it to, automatically organizing your files according to the rules you create. Have Hazel move files around based on name, date, type, what site/email address it came from (Safari and Mail only) and much more. Automatically put your music in your Music folder, movies in Movies. Keep your downloads off the desktop and put them where they are supposed to be.
Pro Very customizable
More so than alternatives.
Pro Cleans up after uninstalling an application
When you delete an application Hazel will pop up and show you a list of attached files belonging to the deleted app to clean your uninstall more correctly.
Pro iLife Support
Hazel features new actions to import your files into iPhoto or iTunes. And with Hazel 3, you can import into Aperture projects and folders as well.
Pro Process files depending on their content
Its in-file search criteria allows it to extract dates from files (e.g., to add to the filename) and to categorize recurrent files (e.g., receipts) into subfolders (or to treat them in some specific way).
Cons
Con Mac only
This is a major problem for larger teams that have varied development environments.
Con Confined
You get only the tools that are provided by the application.
Con Proprietary
Con Expensive
Con Doesn't work well with subfolders
The rules don't work very well with subfolders and working with archive files (zip, rar, gz, 7z, etc) is also limited.
Con Rules creation is a time consuming process
To really enjoy the power of Hazel, you will need to progressively create more and more rules to manage each specific kind of file, but this process is slow, quite annoying when you have many similar rules, and can only be learned on the way, as you find new uses for it.