# Homebrew

🍺 The Package Manager for Everywhere

Repository: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew
Canonical: https://ross.abutalabs.com/products/homebrew
Homepage: https://brew.sh
Language: Ruby
License: BSD-2-Clause
License Family: permissive
Topics: homebrew, ruby, macos, package-manager, brew
Last push: 2026-08-26T20:00:25+00:00

## Health v2 (maintenance only)
Score: 95/100 (v2, computed 2026-09-03T02:39:23.370411+00:00)
- activity 99, release rhythm 87, longevity 100
- inputs: {"age_days": 3832, "days_push": 7, "days_rel": 9, "gap_med": 6, "n_releases_24m": 126}
- flags: none
- formula: round(0.45*activity + 0.35*rhythm + 0.20*longevity); archived -> min(score, 10)

## Adoption (not part of the score)
Stars 49289, forks 11304 (observed 2026-08-28T04:12:11.581168+00:00)

## What it is
Homebrew is a command-line package manager that installs, updates, and manages software packages (formulae and casks) across macOS and Linux. It is written in Ruby and backed by large community-maintained package repositories like homebrew-core and homebrew-cask.

## Use cases
- install command-line tools on macOS
- manage software packages from the terminal
- install GUI applications via casks
- declare and restore a set of packages with a Brewfile
- run background services like databases with brew services
- set up a development environment on a new machine

## When to choose
- you need a simple, widely-adopted way to install CLI tools and apps on macOS or Linux
- you want reproducible machine setup via brew bundle
- you prefer community-maintained packages with frequent updates

## When to avoid
- you need strict reproducibility or pinned environments (use Nix or containers)
- you are on Windows natively without WSL
- you need system-level package management on a distro with its own native package manager

## Facets
- artifact type: cli-tool
- maturity: stable
- function: package-manager, cli, developer-tools, dependency-audit
- domain: developer-tools, cross-platform
- platform: cli, ruby
- tags: brew, formulae, casks, macos-packages, system-dependencies, command-line, devops, macos, linux

## Member repositories
- Homebrew/brew (main) score 95
- Homebrew/legacy-homebrew (mirror) score 10
- Homebrew/homebrew-cask (plugin) score 67
- Homebrew/homebrew-core (plugin) score 77
- Homebrew/homebrew-bundle (mirror) score 10
- Homebrew/install (infra) score 76
- Homebrew/homebrew-services (mirror) score 10

## Provenance
- Observed fields: from GitHub, fetched 2026-08-28T04:12:11.581168+00:00.
- Health v2: computed from the inputs above; adoption is never an input.
- Inferred fields (summary, facets, guidance): AI-extracted, prompt v1, taxonomy v1, on 2026-08-30T08:09:25.017856+00:00, confidence not recorded.
  - readme: https://github.com/Homebrew/brew (fetched 2026-08-28T04:12:11.581168+00:00, sha ae7488c641c1)
- Data as of 2026-08-30T08:39:29.467469+00:00.