Homebrew
The facts below are what the maker publishes about Homebrew, checked and dated. Our editors have not written about it yet.
Plans and prices
From Homebrew's own pricing page, checked 12 Oct 2026.
| Plan | Price | What it gives you |
|---|---|---|
| Homebrew | Free | Command-line package manager · macOS, Linux and WSL · Free to use |
The facts
Each one read from Homebrew's own pages, with the date it was checked.
What it does
- Anonymous analytics
- Homebrew displays a notice before enabling aggregate anonymous usage analytics, which users can opt out of; events are retained for 365 days.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Binary packages
- When a matching bottle is available, Homebrew downloads and installs it automatically with brew install.checked 11 Oct 2026
- Bundle integrations
- Homebrew Bundle supports formulae, casks, taps, Mac App Store apps, WinGet packages on WSL, VS Code extensions, Go, Cargo, npm, uv, Flatpak, krew and background services.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Casks
- Casks install upstream pre-built binaries such as applications, fonts and plugins.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Creator
- Homebrew was originally created by Max Howell.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Custom repositories
- Taps let anyone maintain formulae and casks outside Homebrew’s officially supported repositories.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Dependency resolution
- Yeschecked 21 Sep 2026
- Environment setup
- Homebrew Bundle uses Brewfiles to describe packages for setting up an environment.checked 11 Oct 2026
- Formulae
- Formulae define how to build command-line tools, libraries and services from upstream source code.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Installation requirement
- The macOS .pkg installer supports Apple Silicon only; the installation page lists macOS Sequoia 15 or higher for officially supported hardware.checked 11 Oct 2026
- Install options
- The site provides a terminal installation script and links to a macOS package installer for interactive or unattended MDM installs.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Lockfile support
- Nochecked 21 Sep 2026
- Offline installation
- Yeschecked 21 Sep 2026
- Package formats
- formulae,caskschecked 21 Sep 2026
- Package manager
- Homebrew installs UNIX tools on macOS and software not packaged for a Linux distribution.checked 11 Oct 2026
- Package review
- Formulae and casks in the official repositories require human review before acceptance, changes or updates.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Packages
- Homebrew packages are formulae and casks; formulae define command-line tools, libraries and services built from upstream source code.checked 11 Oct 2026
- Project model
- Homebrew is a non-profit project run entirely by volunteers, not employees, and donations support its software, hardware and hosting costs.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Purpose
- Homebrew installs command-line tools and applications across macOS, Linux and Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL).checked 12 Oct 2026
- Repeatable setup
- A Brewfile describes the desired package state so projects or machines can install dependencies consistently.checked 12 Oct 2026
- Supply-chain security
- Homebrew applies download cooldowns to selected ecosystems, including Bundler, npm and pip defaults, PyPI resource resolution, and npm and PyPI bump operations.checked 11 Oct 2026
Where it runs
- Linux support
- Homebrew installs on Linux under the default prefix /home/linuxbrew/.linuxbrew.checked 11 Oct 2026
- macOS security
- Homebrew applies macOS quarantine attributes to cask downloads so Gatekeeper can perform its checks, but says these controls do not guarantee an application is harmless.checked 11 Oct 2026
- Platform limits
- The site lists macOS Sequoia 15 and newer, Linux and WSL as supported; FreeBSD and macOS Catalina 10.15 and earlier are unsupported.checked 12 Oct 2026
