Chocolatey vs Homebrew

Overview

Homebrew

Stacks591

Followers515

Votes3

GitHub Stars45.3K

Forks10.6K

Chocolatey

Stacks96

Followers124

Votes0

Chocolatey vs Homebrew: What are the differences?

Chocolatey and Homebrew are two popular package managers used in different operating systems. Let's discuss the key differences between them:

Installation Process: One major difference is the installation process. Chocolatey is supported on Windows operating systems, and it requires the installation of a package manager first. It provides a PowerShell command-line interface to install, upgrade, and uninstall software packages. On the other hand, Homebrew is designed for macOS and requires the installation of Xcode command-line tools, which include the Clang compiler. It leverages Terminal for managing packages.
System Compatibility: Chocolatey is specifically built for Windows, providing a package management solution in a Windows environment. It can manage native Windows applications as well as Windows-specific libraries. On the contrary, Homebrew is designed exclusively for macOS, providing a package manager only for macOS and not for other operating systems.
Package Repositories: Chocolatey has a centralized package repository called the Chocolatey Community Package Repository. It contains a wide range of packages that users can easily search, install, and manage. Homebrew, on the other hand, utilizes a decentralized model. It has its own package repository, called Homebrew Core, which is maintained by the Homebrew community. Users can contribute packages to Homebrew Core, and it also supports taps, which are additional repositories created by third-party developers.
Package Management: Chocolatey and Homebrew have slightly different approaches to package management. Chocolatey uses NuGet packages, which are essentially ZIP archives with a specific folder structure. It automates package installations by scripting a series of commands. Homebrew, on the other hand, uses formulae, which are Ruby scripts that specify how to install and manage a particular package. It provides a more developer-focused approach by allowing users to modify the formulae to suit their needs.
User Interface: Another difference lies in the user interface. Chocolatey provides a command-line interface (CLI) using PowerShell, which allows users to interact with the package manager through commands. It also offers a GUI package manager called Chocolatey GUI, which provides a graphical interface for managing packages. Homebrew, on the other hand, is primarily a command-line tool and relies on Terminal for all package management tasks. It does not have a graphical user interface.
Supported Operating Systems: As mentioned earlier, Chocolatey is designed specifically for Windows and works on Windows 7 and higher, as well as Windows Server 2003 and higher. Homebrew, on the other hand, is exclusively for macOS and requires macOS 10.7 (Lion) or higher.

In summary, Chocolatey is a package manager for Windows, while Homebrew is for macOS. Chocolatey requires the installation of a package manager, supports a centralized repository, uses NuGet packages, and offers both command-line and GUI interfaces. On the other hand, Homebrew relies on Terminal, has a decentralized repository, uses formulae, and is exclusively for macOS.

Share your Stack

Help developers discover the tools you use. Get visibility for your team's tech choices and contribute to the community's knowledge.

View Docs

CLI (Node.js)

Manual

Detailed Comparison

Homebrew	Chocolatey
Homebrew installs the stuff you need that Apple didn’t. Homebrew installs packages to their own directory and then symlinks their files into /usr/local.	It is based on a developer-centric package manager called NuGet. Unlike manual installations, It adds, updates, and uninstalls programs in the background requiring very little user interaction.
-	works with all existing software installation technologies; works with runtime binaries and zip archives
Statistics
GitHub Stars 45.3K	GitHub Stars -
GitHub Forks 10.6K	GitHub Forks -
Stacks 591	Stacks 96
Followers 515	Followers 124
Votes 3	Votes 0
Pros & Cons
Pros 3 Clean, neat, powerful, fast and furious	No community feedback yet
Integrations
Ruby cURL GNU Bash	Ansible Windows

What are some alternatives to Homebrew, Chocolatey?

Meteor

A Meteor application is a mix of JavaScript that runs inside a client web browser, JavaScript that runs on the Meteor server inside a Node.js container, and all the supporting HTML fragments, CSS rules, and static assets.

Bower

Bower is a package manager for the web. It offers a generic, unopinionated solution to the problem of front-end package management, while exposing the package dependency model via an API that can be consumed by a more opinionated build stack. There are no system wide dependencies, no dependencies are shared between different apps, and the dependency tree is flat.

Elm

Writing HTML apps is super easy with elm-lang/html. Not only does it render extremely fast, it also quietly guides you towards well-architected code.

Julia

Julia is a high-level, high-performance dynamic programming language for technical computing, with syntax that is familiar to users of other technical computing environments. It provides a sophisticated compiler, distributed parallel execution, numerical accuracy, and an extensive mathematical function library.

Racket

It is a general-purpose, multi-paradigm programming language based on the Scheme dialect of Lisp. It is designed to be a platform for programming language design and implementation. It is also used for scripting, computer science education, and research.

PureScript

A small strongly typed programming language with expressive types that compiles to JavaScript, written in and inspired by Haskell.

Composer

It is a tool for dependency management in PHP. It allows you to declare the libraries your project depends on and it will manage (install/update) them for you.

pnpm

It uses hard links and symlinks to save one version of a module only ever once on a disk. When using npm or Yarn for example, if you have 100 projects using the same version of lodash, you will have 100 copies of lodash on disk. With pnpm, lodash will be saved in a single place on the disk and a hard link will put it into the node_modules where it should be installed.

Bun

Develop, test, run, and bundle JavaScript & TypeScript projects—all with Bun. Bun is an all-in-one JavaScript runtime & toolkit designed for speed, complete with a bundler, test runner, and Node.js-compatible package manager.

fpm

It helps you build packages quickly and easily (Packages like RPM and DEB formats).

Related Comparisons

Chocolatey vs Homebrew: What are the differences?

Chocolatey and Homebrew are two popular package managers used in different operating systems. Let's discuss the key differences between them:

Installation Process: One major difference is the installation process. Chocolatey is supported on Windows operating systems, and it requires the installation of a package manager first. It provides a PowerShell command-line interface to install, upgrade, and uninstall software packages. On the other hand, Homebrew is designed for macOS and requires the installation of Xcode command-line tools, which include the Clang compiler. It leverages Terminal for managing packages.
System Compatibility: Chocolatey is specifically built for Windows, providing a package management solution in a Windows environment. It can manage native Windows applications as well as Windows-specific libraries. On the contrary, Homebrew is designed exclusively for macOS, providing a package manager only for macOS and not for other operating systems.
Package Repositories: Chocolatey has a centralized package repository called the Chocolatey Community Package Repository. It contains a wide range of packages that users can easily search, install, and manage. Homebrew, on the other hand, utilizes a decentralized model. It has its own package repository, called Homebrew Core, which is maintained by the Homebrew community. Users can contribute packages to Homebrew Core, and it also supports taps, which are additional repositories created by third-party developers.
Package Management: Chocolatey and Homebrew have slightly different approaches to package management. Chocolatey uses NuGet packages, which are essentially ZIP archives with a specific folder structure. It automates package installations by scripting a series of commands. Homebrew, on the other hand, uses formulae, which are Ruby scripts that specify how to install and manage a particular package. It provides a more developer-focused approach by allowing users to modify the formulae to suit their needs.
User Interface: Another difference lies in the user interface. Chocolatey provides a command-line interface (CLI) using PowerShell, which allows users to interact with the package manager through commands. It also offers a GUI package manager called Chocolatey GUI, which provides a graphical interface for managing packages. Homebrew, on the other hand, is primarily a command-line tool and relies on Terminal for all package management tasks. It does not have a graphical user interface.
Supported Operating Systems: As mentioned earlier, Chocolatey is designed specifically for Windows and works on Windows 7 and higher, as well as Windows Server 2003 and higher. Homebrew, on the other hand, is exclusively for macOS and requires macOS 10.7 (Lion) or higher.

Chocolatey vs Homebrew

Overview