zerobrew is a high-performance package manager that brings modern architecture to Homebrew's ecosystem. It's fully compatible with Homebrew bottles and formulas, making it an ideal drop-in alternative for macOS and Linux users.

The performance gains come from several key innovations:

Parallel processing: Downloads and extracts packages simultaneously instead of sequentially
APFS clonefiles: Uses copy-on-write technology on macOS to copy packages by reference, eliminating disk overhead
Content-addressed storage: SHA256 hashed storage prevents duplicate data and enables instant reinstalls
Garbage collection: Built-in gc command removes unreferenced data to reclaim space

Benchmarks show 5-20x faster performance compared to Homebrew, with warm cache installs reaching up to 29x speedup on larger packages. The tool supports all standard Homebrew commands—install, upgrade, uninstall, list, doctor—plus bundle management for Brewfile support.

While experimental, zerobrew is already production-ready for many common formulas. It's designed to run alongside Homebrew rather than replace it, giving you the flexibility to test performance improvements without commitment. Perfect for developers who value speed and efficiency in their package management workflow.

Brew