GitHub - zerobrewhq/zerobrew: An up to 100x* faster Homebrew alternative
Pangram verdict · v3.3
We believe that this text is a mix of AI and human-written content.
AI likelihood · overall
MixedArticle text · 1,478 words · 9 segments analyzed
English · 中文 zerobrew brings uv-style architecture to Homebrew packages on macOS and Linux. Install curl -fsSL https://zerobrew.rs/install | bash The installer updates your shell config. After it finishes, restart your terminal or run the source command it prints. Or via Homebrew: brew install zerobrewhq/zerobrew/zerobrew Update zerobrew If you used the standalone installer, rerun it: curl -fsSL https://zerobrew.rs/install | bash zb --version If you installed with Homebrew: brew update && brew upgrade zerobrew If you installed from the old lucasgelfond/zerobrew tap, it's no longer updated.
Switch to the new one: brew uninstall zerobrew brew untap lucasgelfond/zerobrew brew install zerobrewhq/zerobrew/zerobrew Quick start zb install jq # install one package zb install wget git # install multiple zb bundle # install from Brewfile zb bundle install -f myfile # install from custom file zb bundle dump # export installed packages to Brewfile zb bundle dump -f out --force # dump to custom file (overwrite) zb uninstall jq # uninstall one package zb outdated # list packages with newer versions zb upgrade # upgrade all outdated packages zb upgrade jq wget # upgrade specific packages zb reset # uninstall everything zb gc # garbage collect unused store entries zbx jq --version # run without linking Performance snapshot Package Homebrew (cold) ZB (cold) Cold speedup Homebrew (warm) ZB (warm) Warm speedup Overall (100 packages) 776s 117s 6.6x 638s 9.3s 68x [email protected] 16.99s 1.97s 8.6x 14.37s 207ms 69.4x node 29.31s 3.16s 9.3x 28.24s 232ms 121.7x tesseract 34.63s 2.16s 16.0x 32.37s 476ms 68.0x openjdk 32.09s 5.17s 6.2x 26.86s 448ms 60.0x llvm 18.22s 9.14s 2.0x 9.66s 183ms 52.8x Measured on 2026-10-08 with zerobrew 0.3.5 (development release) and Homebrew 7.0.8 on macOS 26.6.2, MacBook Pro (M3 Pro, 18 GB RAM), ~318 Mbit/s download bandwidth. Homebrew started with nothing installed. Cold: the package and all of its dependencies uninstalled, empty download cache. Warm: the package and all of its dependencies uninstalled, downloads from the cold run still cached. The median package was 5.3x faster cold and 56x faster warm. Per package, cold ranged from 1.6x (go) to 20x (ca-certificates) and warm from 18x (go) to 252x (ca-certificates).
24 of the 100 packages installed 100x faster or more warm, which is what the asterisk on the tagline refers to. Cold installs are bound by the link. The same run on a ~69 Mbit/s connection (results/2026-10-07) came out at 3.3x cold and 69x warm. Big bottles like go and llvm spend nearly all of their cold time downloading, so both tools land close together there.
Full results Package Homebrew (cold) ZB (cold) Cold speedup Homebrew (warm) ZB (warm) Warm speedup Overall (100 packages) 775.60s 117.43s 6.60x 637.50s 9.33s 68.31x ca-certificates 7.65s 376ms 20.35x 6.55s 26ms 252.12x openssl@3 11.02s 1.30s 8.46x 9.18s 64ms 143.47x xz 2.39s 454ms 5.26x 1.46s 29ms 50.31x sqlite 2.99s 591ms 5.06x 2.04s 27ms 75.67x readline 2.48s 494ms 5.02x 1.46s 26ms 56.08x icu4c@78 3.32s 1.57s 2.11x 1.96s 33ms 59.42x [email protected] 16.99s 1.97s 8.62x 14.37s 207ms 69.41x awscli 27.22s 3.37s 8.08x 25.56s 483ms 52.92x node 29.31s 3.16s 9.28x 28.24s 232ms 121.72x harfbuzz 29.34s 2.20s 13.34x 22.35s 364ms 61.41x ncurses 3.13s 1.04s 3.01x 2.04s 69ms 29.59x gh 2.60s 903ms 2.87x 1.35s 38ms 35.58x pcre2 2.58s 631ms 4.08x 1.57s 35ms 44.94x libpng 2.49s 854ms 2.92x 1.50s 27ms 55.70x zstd 4.12s 672ms 6.13x 2.74s 34ms 80.50x glib 7.02s 1.72s 4.08x 5.24s 94ms 55.76x lz4 2.89s 635ms 4.54x 1.48s 27ms 54.74x gettext 4.72s 1.30s 3.61x 3.25s 64ms 50.81x libngtcp2 10.79s 1.40s 7.73x 9.20s 66ms 139.36x libnghttp3 2.38s 436ms 5.47x 1.47s 27ms 54.44x pkgconf 2.35s 469ms 5.02x 1.47s 27ms 54.59x libunistring 2.57s 981ms 2.62x 1.49s 26ms 57.12x mpdecimal 2.53s 705ms 3.59x 1.47s 27ms 54.33x brotli 2.65s 776ms 3.41x 1.48s 27ms 54.67x jpeg-turbo 2.55s 889ms 2.87x 1.48s 27ms 54.78x xorgproto 2.21s 484ms 4.57x 1.21s 29ms 41.59x ffmpeg 18.57s 1.76s 10.54x 17.62s 164ms 107.41x cmake 4.04s 1.66s 2.44x 1.73s 80ms 21.64x libnghttp2 2.63s 635ms 4.14x 1.46s 26ms 56.31x go 5.43s 3.36s 1.61x 3.40s 190ms 17.92x uv 2.90s 1.37s 2.12x 1.27s 28ms 45.43x gmp 2.62s 543ms 4.83x 1.47s 26ms 56.42x libtiff 7.08s 821ms 8.62x 6.11s 53ms 115.19x fontconfig 9.35s 982ms 9.52x 8.13s 77ms 105.61x [email protected] 14.28s 1.76s 8.12x 13.15s 186ms 70.71x git 6.46s 1.67s 3.88x 4.98s 101ms 49.33x little-cms2 7.85s 792ms 9.91x 6.83s 55ms 124.16x dav1d 2.49s 544ms 4.58x 1.47s 26ms 56.42x openexr 9.95s 712ms 13.98x 8.83s 59ms 149.59x c-ares 2.51s 513ms 4.90x 1.51s 32ms 47.34x tesseract 34.63s 2.16s 16.01x 32.37s 476ms 68.01x p11-kit 9.26s 996ms 9.30x 7.95s 32ms 248.53x imagemagick 14.51s 1.21s 12.00x 13.20s 82ms 160.95x zlib 2.36s 430ms 5.48x 1.46s 25ms 58.44x libx11 5.70s 932ms 6.11x 4.71s 174ms 27.05x freetype 3.51s 585ms 5.99x 2.21s 32ms 69.22x protobuf 4.06s 725ms 5.60x 3.09s 57ms 54.21x gnupg 21.97s 1.36s 16.16x 20.63s 192ms 107.44x openjph 7.88s 697ms 11.31x 6.80s 54ms 126.02x libtasn1 2.30s 461ms 4.99x 1.49s 28ms 53.25x ruby 16.01s 3.83s 4.18x 14.56s 801ms 18.18x gnutls 14.93s 1.19s 12.52x 13.93s 134ms 103.96x expat 2.40s 442ms 5.42x 1.48s 26ms 56.88x libsodium 2.44s 884ms 2.76x 1.48s 27ms 54.96x simdjson 2.52s 619ms 4.08x 1.49s 26ms 57.12x gemini-cli 29.98s 2.23s 13.43x 27.64s 235ms 117.60x libarchive 5.02s 594ms 8.45x 4.04s 35ms 115.31x pyenv 12.61s 1.39s 9.06x 11.44s 135ms 84.76x pixman 2.44s 487ms 5.01x 1.49s 26ms 57.19x curl 16.37s 1.47s 11.12x 15.20s 173ms 87.88x opus 2.37s 497ms 4.76x 1.47s 27ms 54.59x unbound 12.24s 1.35s 9.07x 11.03s 113ms 97.58x cairo 19.28s 1.48s 12.99x 17.74s 370ms 47.95x pango 24.48s 1.69s 14.46x 23.06s 411ms 56.10x leptonica 9.48s 914ms 10.37x 8.39s 66ms 127.18x libxcb 4.88s 887ms 5.50x 3.89s 132ms 29.45x jpeg-xl 12.96s 997ms 13.00x 11.92s 70ms 170.31x coreutils 3.31s 760ms 4.35x 2.24s 38ms 58.97x certifi 7.81s 461ms 16.95x 6.98s 31ms 225.06x krb5 10.49s 1.34s 7.85x 9.28s 68ms 136.44x docker 2.26s 734ms 3.08x 1.21s 29ms 41.83x libheif 10.88s 961ms 11.32x 9.59s 63ms 152.24x webp 4.31s 578ms 7.46x 3.37s 35ms 96.40x libxext 6.45s 982ms 6.57x 5.42s 182ms 29.80x libxau 2.74s 512ms 5.35x 1.85s 33ms 56.06x gcc 12.23s 3.55s 3.45x 8.58s 67ms 128.00x bzip2 2.09s 368ms 5.69x 1.14s 26ms 43.65x libxdmcp 2.74s 540ms 5.08x 1.86s 33ms 56.42x abseil 3.05s 800ms 3.82x 1.90s 50ms 38.04x xcbeautify 2.22s 481ms 4.62x 1.15s 26ms 44.35x libuv 2.51s 482ms 5.20x 1.47s 26ms 56.65x giflib 2.31s 673ms 3.44x 1.46s 26ms 56.12x utf8proc 2.36s 452ms 5.23x 1.46s 27ms 54.15x libxrender 6.35s 976ms 6.51x 5.42s 179ms 30.25x m4 2.00s 431ms 4.65x 1.13s 25ms 45.28x graphite2 2.47s 428ms 5.78x 1.46s 26ms 56.23x openjdk 32.09s 5.17s 6.21x 26.86s 448ms 59.96x uvwasi 2.95s 483ms 6.10x 2.11s 29ms 72.66x libffi 2.56s 575ms 4.46x 1.43s 26ms 55.08x libdeflate 2.44s 458ms 5.33x 1.46s 26ms 56.12x llvm 18.22s 9.14s 1.99x 9.66s 183ms 52.79x aom 3.25s 699ms 4.65x 2.16s 32ms 67.50x lzo 2.38s 449ms 5.31x 1.46s 26ms 56.00x libevent 10.66s 1.33s 7.99x 9.19s 71ms 129.42x libgpg-error 5.06s 1.11s 4.56x 3.84s 70ms 54.81x libidn2 4.97s 1.09s 4.56x 3.87s 69ms 56.12x berkeley-db@5 4.05s 1.96s 2.06x 2.60s 56ms 46.45x deno 10.57s 1.46s 7.23x 9.24s 57ms 162.09x libedit 2.35s 442ms 5.33x 1.45s 26ms 55.65x oniguruma 2.37s 508ms 4.67x 1.46s 26ms 56.19x To reproduce, run just bench --full results/ on a machine with nothing installed in Homebrew.
It resets zerobrew, uninstalls everything it installed in Homebrew, and writes a table to results/benchmark.md. A smaller version runs in CI: the parity workflow installs a fixed set of formulae with both tools on the same runner and compares the resulting prefixes byte for byte, and the timing workflow times those formulae plus node and [email protected], cold and warm, with both tools and with the last zerobrew release.
The nightly timing run fails if zerobrew is less than 1.5x faster than Homebrew cold or 3x warm on any of them, or more than 20% slower than the last release overall. A note on how we are achieving these speeds WRT Homebrew, I want it to be clear that both brew and zerobrew install the same bottles from Homebrew's build farm.
The difference is what happens after the download: Homebrew runs Ruby to evaluate the formula, unpacks, rewrites paths with install_name_tool, and re-signs each binary one at a time, while zerobrew does the relocation in-process and links from a content-addressed store, so it pays for the download once and almost nothing after. I want it to be clear that we are basically nothing without Homebrew's bottle build farm. Every package zerobrew installs is one they built, tested and published. We don't compile anything, we don't maintain formulae, and none of these numbers exist without that work. The speed comes from how the artifacts are installed, not from what's in them.
This is a good read, if you're interested in what zerobrew is and isn't: Standing on the shoulders of Homebrew by Andrew Nesbitt. It makes the point better than I can.
nanobrew: nanobrew’s published numbers time a “warm install” of a package that is already installed, which is an early exit, not an install, and compare against zerobrew 0.1.0. Every number above is a real install from an uninstalled state, with the script and the full log in this repo, so you can run it yourself.