Software Alternatives, Accelerators & Startups

GitHub Actions VS Homebrew

Compare GitHub Actions VS Homebrew and see what are their differences

GitHub Actions logo GitHub Actions

Automate your workflow from idea to production

Homebrew logo Homebrew

The missing package manager for macOS
  • GitHub Actions Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-04-25
  • Homebrew Landing page
    Landing page //
    2023-03-29

GitHub Actions features and specs

  • Seamless GitHub Integration
    GitHub Actions are natively integrated with GitHub, making it easy to use within repositories and leverage other GitHub features such as issues, pull requests, and releases.
  • Custom Workflows
    Allows for the creation of complex and custom workflows using YAML syntax, providing flexibility to handle a variety of CI/CD processes.
  • Marketplace Access
    Access to GitHub Marketplace where a wide range of pre-built actions are available, allowing users to quickly set up workflows with minimal configuration.
  • Concurrent Execution
    Supports parallel execution of jobs, which can significantly reduce the time needed to run workflows by performing multiple tasks simultaneously.
  • Self-Hosted Runners
    Provides the ability to use self-hosted runners, offering more control over the environment and resources used for running workflows.
  • Cost-Efficient
    Includes a generous free tier, especially for public repositories, which can be cost-effective for projects with limited resource requirements.

Possible disadvantages of GitHub Actions

  • Complexity for Beginners
    Due to its powerful features and flexibility, setting up and managing GitHub Actions can be complex for users who are not familiar with CI/CD processes or YAML.
  • Limited to GitHub
    As a GitHub-specific product, GitHub Actions is tied to repositories hosted on GitHub, limiting its use for projects that are hosted on other version control platforms.
  • Billing for Additional Usage
    While there is a free tier, usage beyond the free limits incurs additional charges, which can become significant for high-frequency or resource-intensive workflows.
  • Resource Limitations
    GitHub Actions has limitations on available resources (such as CPU and memory) for runners, which can be restrictive for very resource-intensive tasks.

Homebrew features and specs

  • User-Friendly
    Homebrew provides an easy-to-use command-line interface that simplifies the installation and management of software packages.
  • Wide Range of Packages
    Homebrew offers a vast repository of software, covering a broad spectrum of utilities, languages, and applications.
  • Dependency Management
    Homebrew automatically handles dependencies, ensuring that all required packages are installed and up to date.
  • Community Support
    Homebrew has a strong community backing and regular contributions, which ensures frequent updates and a robust support system.
  • Cross-Platform
    Homebrew is available on macOS and Linux, allowing for consistent package management across different operating systems.
  • Customizability
    Users can create their own formulae to install software that isn’t available in the core repositories.

Possible disadvantages of Homebrew

  • Resource Intensive
    Some users find that Homebrew can be resource-intensive, particularly during installation of large packages or those with numerous dependencies.
  • Security Risks
    Because Homebrew allows for the installation of third-party software, there is a potential risk of downloading insecure or malicious packages.
  • Complexity for Beginners
    While user-friendly for most, beginners with no command-line experience might find the initial learning curve steep.
  • Duplication
    Users might accidentally install software that is already managed by other package managers or system libraries, leading to duplication.
  • Limited GUI Support
    Homebrew is primarily a command-line tool and lacks a graphical user interface, which could be a drawback for users who prefer GUI-based package management.

GitHub Actions videos

5 Ways to DevOps-ify your App - Github Actions Tutorial

More videos:

  • Review - Introducing GitHub Package Registry
  • Review - Automatic Deployment With Github Actions
  • Review - GitHub Actions - Now with built-in CI/CD! Live from GitHub HQ

Homebrew videos

Homebrew Review: Coopers Lager - Taste Test

More videos:

  • Review - Homebrew Review | Alchemist Class by Mage Hand Press (featuring Designer Mike Holik)
  • Review - Northern Brewer Cream Ale Homebrew Review Tasting

Category Popularity

0-100% (relative to GitHub Actions and Homebrew)
DevOps Tools
100 100%
0% 0
Front End Package Manager
Continuous Integration
100 100%
0% 0
Package Manager
0 0%
100% 100

User comments

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Reviews

These are some of the external sources and on-site user reviews we've used to compare GitHub Actions and Homebrew

GitHub Actions Reviews

Top 10 Most Popular Jenkins Alternatives for DevOps in 2024
GitHub Actions is the CI/CD solution that’s built into GitHub, the most popular version control platform. It’s specifically designed to provide an intuitive experience for developers who want to run pipelines quickly without having to configure any separate software. Because it’s a managed SaaS service that’s specifically focused on CI/CD, there are no self-hosting...
Source: spacelift.io

Homebrew Reviews

Top Homebrew Alternative: ServBay Becomes the Go-To for Developers
Homebrew is a highly popular package manager on macOS and Linux systems, enabling users to easily install, update, and uninstall command-line tools and applications. Its design philosophy focuses on simplifying the software installation process on macOS, eliminating the need for manual downloads and compilations of software packages.
Source: medium.com

Social recommendations and mentions

Based on our record, Homebrew should be more popular than GitHub Actions. It has been mentiond 917 times since March 2021. We are tracking product recommendations and mentions on various public social media platforms and blogs. They can help you identify which product is more popular and what people think of it.

GitHub Actions mentions (306)

  • Getting started with FrankenPHP, Laravel and Docker
    My base target is used for development use, but my production target is used for production use. I'm using a GitHub Actions workflow to checkout my code, installing dependencies without development dependencies, and building my application. When that's done, I build the Docker image and send it to my container registry. - Source: dev.to / 10 days ago
  • Automating Voicebot Deployments for Amazon Connect
    In this post, I will share WebRTC.ventures' best practices in automating the deployment of AI-powered voice assistants for Amazon Connect, moving beyond manual, click-by-click setups to a robust, scalable Infrastructure as Code (IaC) approach. We’ll explore how to manage both static and dynamic resources, leverage tools like Terraform and AWS Serverless Application Model (SAM), and even set up an automated... - Source: dev.to / 16 days ago
  • Deploying a static Website with Pulumi
    The Python Pulumi code is deployed with GitHub Actions. This leverages static credentials for AWS embedded as repository secrets. I have implemented two workflows:. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • As Visual Studio App Center closes, a look back, and what to use now?
    When Microsoft announced the App Center shutdown last year, they recommended an array of alternative tools from elsewhere in their developer toolkit and beyond to replace its capabilities. Users seeking an alternative to App Center's hosted build automation, or App Store deployment, capabilities can look to Azure DevOps Pipelines or GitHub Actions. For cloud-based on-device testing, they recommend external tool... - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • The Tech Stack of a Cloud Computing Startup
    We manage infrastructure with Terraform and lean heavily on GitHub Actions for CI/CD. Very simple but it works! Oh and a lot of bash scripts of course. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
View more

Homebrew mentions (917)

  • Connect to Unsupported Older Linux servers with VS Code Remote-SSH using Custom glibc & libstdc++
    Install glibc and patchelf using brew (Homebrew), or build from source, or use a prebuilt binary (if available). This guide uses brew. Also you can see this. - Source: dev.to / 18 days ago
  • Dark Souls CRUD Arena - The Prisoner Approach
    In past personal projects, and in my most recent role, I've used Docker for dependency management to avoid the "works on my machine" scenario. I also just like keeping dependencies off my machine, but for this project I opted not to use containers given my lack of dependencies. I used Homebrew for all my needs :). - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Use the Amazon Q Developer CLI on AWS Graviton
    Install Homebrew if it's not already available on your computer. - Source: dev.to / 28 days ago
  • 5 Local Environment Mistakes I See Everywhere, and How to Fix Them Properly
    # ./launch.sh: #!/bin/bash if ! Command -v brew &> /dev/null; then echo "❌ Homebrew is not installed. Install it from https://brew.sh/" exit 1 fi if ! Command -v docker &> /dev/null; then echo "⚙️ Installing Docker..." brew install --cask docker fi if ! Command -v php &> /dev/null; then echo "🐘 Installing PHP..." brew install php@8.3 fi. - Source: dev.to / about 1 month ago
  • Open Source Developer Patronage Programs: A Sustainable Future for FOSS
    Projects like curl and Homebrew have successfully leveraged patronage programs to achieve financial sustainability. These examples highlight the potential for other projects to follow suit and secure the funding necessary for continued innovation. - Source: dev.to / 2 months ago
View more

What are some alternatives?

When comparing GitHub Actions and Homebrew, you can also consider the following products

CircleCI - CircleCI gives web developers powerful Continuous Integration and Deployment with easy setup and maintenance.

Chocolatey - The sane way to manage software on Windows.

GitHub - Originally founded as a project to simplify sharing code, GitHub has grown into an application used by over a million people to store over two million code repositories, making GitHub the largest code host in the world.

iTerm2 - A terminal emulator for macOS that does amazing things.

Jenkins - Jenkins is an open-source continuous integration server with 300+ plugins to support all kinds of software development

VS Code - Build and debug modern web and cloud applications, by Microsoft