awesome-alternatives

alternatives to

Homebrew

🍺 The Package Manager for Everywhere

Nix, pkgx, and Flox. 3 alternatives to Homebrew, in C++, Rust. Compare fit, licence, stars and the latest signed release.

Side by side

ToolFitStarsLicenceTermsSelf-hostedLanguageLatestLast push
NixPartial18kLGPL-2.1Open sourceNoC++2.35.32026-10-19
pkgxPartial9.9kApache-2.0Open sourceNoRustv2.11.02026-10-12
FloxPartial4.2kGPL-2.0Open sourceNoRustv1.18.22026-10-17

Every alternative

Language
Licence

3 alternatives

NixPartial

Nix, the purely functional package manager

Reproducible per-project packages on macOS and Linux, with a steeper learning curve.

Language
C++
Licence
LGPL-2.1
Stars
18k
Latest
2.35.3
Last push
2026-10-19
pkgxPartial

Run Anything

Runs a tool on demand without installing it, from the same author as Homebrew.

Language
Rust
Licence
Apache-2.0
Stars
9.9k
Latest
v2.11.0
Last push
2026-10-12
FloxPartial

The Deterministic Foundation for your SDLC

Per-project environments on Nix with a catalog of packages and versions.

Language
Rust
Licence
GPL-2.0
Stars
4.2k
Latest
v1.18.2
Last push
2026-10-17

Head to head

About Homebrew

Language
Ruby
Licence
BSD-2-Clause
Stars
50k
Last push
2026-10-19

About Homebrew →