Zerobrew
Shares rank 26 of 35 package managers by recommenders
Fast drop-in Homebrew alternative that people find pleasant to use. Critics report install-path errors and distrust of its AI-written code.
Fast drop-in Homebrew alternative that people find pleasant to use. Critics report install-path errors and distrust of its AI-written code.
23 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 8
- criticize it
- 15
- approval share
- 35%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 8 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- 0.5 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, not met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Nice to use
“It is a fun project, that in my opinion is pretty nice to use.”
Comment from 23 Oct 2026 on Hacker News “Been using this the past week and damn it's nice.”
Comment from 11 Feb 2026 in “Zerobrew is a Rust-based, 5-20x faster drop-in Homebrew alternative” Fast enough that speed is unnoticed
“the latest speedups have brought it fast enough that I no longer really notice it anymore”
Comment from 8 Oct 2026 in “Zerobrew: A faster alternative to Homebrew” Works despite rough code
“OPs implementation works, but is some combination of hacked together / slopcoded”
Comment from 8 Oct 2026 in “Zerobrew: A faster alternative to Homebrew”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Install path and location errors
“it gave me some error about having to change the length of the prefix dir or it wouldn't work and I gave up”
Comment from 12 Feb 2026 in “Zerobrew is a Rust-based, 5-20x faster drop-in Homebrew alternative” “Immediately get an error saying the install path is too long and needs to be fixed”
Comment from 24 Mar 2026 in “Nanobrew: The fastest macOS package manager compatible with brew” “It installed packages to a different directory from homebrew”
Comment from 24 Mar 2026 in “Nanobrew: The fastest macOS package manager compatible with brew” - Comment from 12 Feb 2026 in “Zerobrew is a Rust-based, 5-20x faster drop-in Homebrew alternative”
Vibe-coded, LLM-written code concerns
“OPs implementation works, but is some combination of hacked together / slopcoded”
Comment from 8 Oct 2026 in “Zerobrew: A faster alternative to Homebrew” “not simply whacked out a 100% vibe coded app in a week”
Comment from 8 Oct 2026 in “Zerobrew: A faster alternative to Homebrew” “Warning for those that care: LLM readme.”
Comment from 8 Oct 2026 in “Zerobrew: A faster alternative to Homebrew” - Comment from 8 Oct 2026 in “Zerobrew: A faster alternative to Homebrew”
Other package managers people recommend
The four most recommended other package managers, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 35 package managers, rankedWhat people said
17 of the 23 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“It is a fun project, that in my opinion is pretty nice to use.”
“not simply whacked out a 100% vibe coded app in a week”
“the latest speedups have brought it fast enough that I no longer really notice it anymore”
“Latest version of brew is now fast enough for making having a faster version useless IMHO.”
“It breaks with basic stuff like node half the time”
“OPs implementation works, but is some combination of hacked together / slopcoded”
“This is not a smart package manager, its a manager for the "dumb" masses”
“Yeah this slop is amazing”
“something like this starts with trust zero as far as I'm concerned”
“Warning for those that care: LLM readme.”
“Immediately get an error saying the install path is too long and needs to be fixed”
“It installed packages to a different directory from homebrew”
“it didn't install in existing linuxbrew location”
“it gave me some error about having to change the length of the prefix dir or it wouldn't work and I gave up”
“Been using this the past week and damn it's nice.”
“Does not yet implement upgrading installed packages.”
“You pull packages from Homebrew, and yet do not credit them?”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.