Homebrew for Web Development

Homebrew is an awesome command-line software management solution for macOS (similar to MacPorts). It can install pretty much all software required for web development and keep it organised (under/usr/local) and updated with a single command.

Why is it awesome?

• Installs packages quickly without having to download and run the installers via a web browser.
• Builds everything from source (unless installing from cask) which makes it secure. Compares checksums of the download files against known references.
• Places everything under /usr/local and doesn’t use root privileges for added security and limited system access.

Use It

Here is how to install some of the most popular packages. In most cases you just need to run brew install PACKAGENAME or brew cask install PACKAGENAME for packages that are distributed as binaries.

Development Tools

Install Node.js and npm:

brew install node

Install Composer:

brew install composer

Editors

Install Visual Studio Code:

brew cask install visual-studio-code

Install Atom:

brew cask install atom

Virtual Development Environments

Install VirtualBox:

brew cask install virtualbox

Install Vagrant:

brew cask install vagrant

Install Docker and Docker Compose:

brew install docker docker-compose

Useful Commands

Update Homebrew and the package information:

brew update

Update all installed packages:

brew upgrade

Remove old versions of packages:

brew cleanup

List all installed packages:

brew list