I've just recently switched from Homebrew to MacPorts on OSX, after using Homebrew for as long as I can remember.<p>I got sick of having to wait several minutes for homebrew to crank into action and check for updates every time I fired it up and also the fact that they've been actively deprecating older versions of OSX. [Im still happily using Mojave on my antiquated laptop and desktop].<p>Then there were the build times which, in some cases, would take hours and leave my laptop hot enough to fry eggs on.<p>Since switching to MacPorts [fingers crossed!] I've had no problems so far; It checks for updates much quicker. It never has problems finding versions of software which will run on Mojave [and it doesn't keep warning me that I'm "on my own" for running an older version of OSX!]. Install times are much faster, as MacPorts favours pre-built binaries.<p>The only issues I've had so far have been a few obscure edge cases, such as VSCodium plugins where they've stopped working and I've needed to update the binaries they're configured to point to, away from <i>/usr/local/bin/</i> [Homebrew] to <i>/opt/local/bin/</i> [MacPorts].<p>I could [in the past] see the need for Homebrew on OSX. But I certainly don't have any intention of letting it anywhere near any of my Linux boxes. Especially as they already have decent package management built in.
'Private' software (software that's only being used/installed by one user, rather than being installed for system-wide usage) should be installed to ~/.local/bin.<p>You shouldn't need to install something like Homebrew to do that. The words 'sledgehammer' and 'walnut' spring to mind.