BrewUI: Homebrew's Official macOS GUI

TL;DR: BrewUI is Homebrew’s official native macOS front-end, written in Swift under AGPL-3.0. It wraps the brew CLI in a windowed app so you can search formulas, track installs, and read package details without opening Terminal.

What it is

Homebrew/BrewUI is a Swift-built desktop client for Homebrew, the macOS package manager. The GitHub description calls it “Homebrew’s official macOS GUI”, and the project ships with an AGPL-3.0 license. It is hosted under the Homebrew organisation (the same account that maintains the core Homebrew/brew repository), which makes it the canonical GUI option rather than a third-party wrapper.

The repository has roughly 1,400 stars, 31 forks, and an open-issues list that sits around 8 — a small but actively maintained codebase. The default branch is main, and the last push recorded by the GitHub API was within the past day.

What it does well

BrewUI exposes the parts of Homebrew that people reach for most often:

• Browse installed formulas and casks from a single window.
• Search the formula catalogue without writing brew search queries.
• Inspect metadata for a package (version, dependencies, caveats) before installing.
• Trigger installs, upgrades, and uninstalls through UI buttons.

Because it is written in Swift, it behaves like a native macOS app rather than an Electron wrapper. Window chrome, search fields, and list rendering all use system controls, which keeps memory and startup time low compared with browser-based dashboards.

How it is licensed

The repo ships under AGPL-3.0. That matters for downstream use: if you fork BrewUI and run a modified version on a network-accessible service, the AGPL terms apply. For personal use and for compiling your own build locally, it behaves like a normal open-source license. Note that the underlying Homebrew CLI is BSD-2-Clause, so BrewUI is more restrictive than the tool it wraps.

How to try it

Build it locally with Swift’s package manager once you’ve cloned the repository:

git clone https://github.com/Homebrew/BrewUI.git
cd BrewUI
swift build
swift run BrewUI

You’ll need a working brew install on the same machine — BrewUI is a GUI on top of the CLI, not a replacement for it. Releases, when present, are distributed as .app bundles from the GitHub releases page.

When it fits, and when it doesn’t

Reach for BrewUI when you want a visual inventory of what is on your Mac, when you want a safer-feeling install flow than typing package names into a shell, or when you are onboarding a teammate who isn’t comfortable with brew install. Skip it if you script Homebrew in CI, rely on private taps, or want to manage packages over SSH — the CLI is still the source of truth.

Source and Accuracy Notes

• Project page: https://github.com/Homebrew/BrewUI
• Source repository: Homebrew/BrewUI (verified via GitHub API html_url)
• License: AGPL-3.0 (verified via GitHub API license.spdx_id)
• Stars at time of writing: 1,397
• Language: Swift
• Homepage: none provided in repository metadata