The macOS & Linux package manager

One line to install anything — and remember it tomorrow.

Homebrew is the missing installer for the Unix-y world. Thousands of CLI tools and macOS apps, one command to install, one command to upgrade, one command to remove. Open-source, community-maintained, used by millions of developers daily.

Open the catalog Or visit brew.sh ↗

~ — zsh

The problem it solves

Before Homebrew, installing a thing was a thing.

Every tool came with its own ritual: chase down a binary, fight with permissions, scatter files in places you'd never find again. Homebrew collapses that into one verb.

Without a package manager

Hunt through vendor websites for the right installer for your CPU.
Fight macOS Gatekeeper, sudo prompts, and arbitrary install paths.
Files scatter across /usr/local, /opt, ~/Library — no clean way to list what you have.
Upgrades and removals are manual, error-prone, and easy to forget.

With Homebrew

One command, one canonical source — brew install <name>.
Sandboxed prefix (/opt/homebrew on Apple Silicon) with predictable structure.
brew list shows everything you have; brew info <name> tells you about it.
brew upgrade keeps your toolbox current; brew uninstall cleans up after itself.

The two flavours

Formulae and casks.

Homebrew packages come in two shapes. Same install verb, different destinations — and once you see the split, every `brew install` command starts to make sense.

brew install <formula>

Formula

Command-line tools, libraries, daemons

Compiled from source or installed as a pre-built “bottle” (a tarball matched to your macOS version + chip). Files land in a versioned Cellar at /opt/homebrew/Cellar and get symlinked onto your PATH.

Lives in /opt/homebrew/Cellar (or /usr/local/Cellar on Intel)
Bottled when possible — install in seconds, not minutes
Works on macOS and Linux (via Linuxbrew)

Examplesgitnodepythonffmpegpostgresqlawscli

$ brew install git

brew install --cask <cask>

Cask

macOS GUI applications

Pre-built .app bundles or vendor installers (signed DMGs, PKGs) wrapped in a Homebrew recipe. Apps drop into /Applications just like a manual install — but Homebrew tracks the version and handles upgrades.

Drops .app bundles straight into /Applications
Trusts the vendor’s installer; Homebrew verifies the checksum
macOS-only (casks are unsigned binaries; brew refuses them on Linux)

Examplesvisual-studio-codeslackdocker-desktopfirefoxiterm2

$ brew install --cask visual-studio-code

Under the hood

What happens when you run `brew install`.

Four steps from a name on your keyboard to a working tool on your machine.

Resolve

Homebrew looks up the package definition in its taps (formulae.brew.sh by default), then in any third-party taps you’ve added.

Download

It fetches either a pre-built bottle from GitHub Container Registry or the original source archive, verifying the checksum every time.

Install

Files land in a versioned directory under the Homebrew prefix; binaries are symlinked onto your PATH and apps drop into /Applications.

Manage

One tool from then on — brew list, brew info, brew upgrade, brew uninstall. Reproduce a setup with brew bundle dump and brew bundle install.

Now go build your machine.

Browse the full catalog, drop the tools you need into a bundle, and copy a single install command for your terminal.

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