MacPorts has far more packages than Homebrew and was implemented by the creator of the original FreeBSD ports system, who was also an employee on Apple’s UNIX team. MacPorts is the standard macOS package manager.
This made it easier to adapt large collections of packages to new versions of macOS. Or to adopt the latest version of a package. Easier for integration testing for my application.
It doesn't surprise me at all that MacPorts has a larger collection of packages than HomeBrew.
My other ride is Gentoo Linux. :-)
No, it's not. macOS does not have a standard package manager.
case aptItem
case brewItem
case nugetItem
case yumItem
I like MacPorts, but most macOS using developers I’ve conversed with over the past 12+ years never heard of it, while all of them used Homebrew. Maybe it depends on what developer circles one inhabits.
I’ve dabbled in BSD before and I can definitely see the correspondence between Macports and freeBSD ports. I assume homebrew tries to be more similar to apt or yum.
Takes forever to compile stuff on a G3 though :)
But, by all measures, MacPorts is more standard than Homebrew. Such as being implemented by an Apple employee who also created the official (source-based) package manager for the most popular BSD.
Homebrew definitely has a lot more market share though, much to my chagrin. The only other MacPorts users I’ve met in person are people I convinced to switch.