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Homebrew vs pnpm: What are the differences?
# Homebrew vs. pnpm Comparison
Homebrew and pnpm are two package managers used in software development. Let's explore the key differences between them.
1. **Installation Process**: Homebrew is an easy-to-install package manager for Mac OS, while pnpm requires Node.js to be installed before it can be used.
2. **Dependency Handling**: Homebrew installs packages globally, while pnpm uses a unique approach of storing dependencies in a flat node_modules structure to ensure there are no duplicates.
3. **Performance**: pnpm is known for its faster installation speed and disk space optimization due to its unique approach of storing packages, whereas Homebrew may take longer to install and manage dependencies.
4. **Updates**: Homebrew requires regular updates to its formulae, while pnpm simplifies updates by only requiring changes to the package.json file.
5. **Community Support**: Homebrew has a larger community backing and more extensive package repository support compared to pnpm, which may have limited community resources.
6. **Compatibility**: Homebrew is primarily designed for Mac OS, while pnpm is cross-platform and works on various operating systems including Windows and Linux.
In Summary, Homebrew is popular for its ease of installation and vast package repository, while pnpm stands out for its unique dependency handling and superior performance.
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Learn MorePros of Homebrew
Pros of pnpm
Pros of Homebrew
- Clean, neat, powerful, fast and furious3
Pros of pnpm
- Fast4
- Uses less disk space3
- Works as a Node.js package manager2
- Has CLI auto-completion1
- Has a nice UI1
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What is Homebrew?
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.
What is 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.
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What companies use Homebrew?
What companies use pnpm?
What companies use Homebrew?
See which teams inside your own company are using Homebrew or pnpm.
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What tools integrate with Homebrew?
What tools integrate with pnpm?
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What are some alternatives to Homebrew and pnpm?
Nix
It makes package management reliable and reproducible. It provides atomic upgrades and rollbacks, side-by-side installation of multiple versions of a package, multi-user package management and easy setup of build environments.
pip
It is the package installer for Python. You can use pip to install packages from the Python Package Index and other indexes.
npm
npm is the command-line interface to the npm ecosystem. It is battle-tested, surprisingly flexible, and used by hundreds of thousands of JavaScript developers every day.
Anaconda
A free and open-source distribution of the Python and R programming languages for scientific computing, that aims to simplify package management and deployment. Package versions are managed by the package management system conda.
Chocolatey
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.