Wednesday December 31, 2025 will be the last day we can use/enjoy CoreCode’s MacUpdater 3 to keep software on our Mac up-to-date:
Which alternatives do you (plan to) use?
I’m currently using these (but interested in alternatives):
I’ve been using MacUpdater for years and was sorry to hear that it was being discontinued. My understanding is that they maintained an extensive database of Mac apps, which made it useful and reliable, but also required a lot of manual upkeep.
The most promising alternative I’ve found so far is Updatest. It has a clean, modern UI and can programmatically identify some but not all apps with updates. It’s still in beta and has some bugs and limitations, but the developer is very responsive and publishes updates regularly. I currently only use Updatest to scan for updates (I update them manually) and don’t use Homebrew.
I’ve also used Latest in the past. It’s a nicely designed app, but doesn’t appear to be in active development at the moment.
I’ll be curious to hear if anyone else has found alternatives to MacUpdater.
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I’ve also used Latest in the past. It’s a nicely designed app, but doesn’t appear to be in active development at the moment.
Coincidentally, someone posted this new “issue” yesterday:
Curious how that develops…
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I’ve also been using Updatest for a while, since the developer posted on reddit.
It’s the best alternative to MacUpdater that I’ve found.
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I’ll give Updatest a try. Tried Latest but just looking nice is not good enough for an updater.
I’m giving Updatest a try. How long should the initial scan for apps take?
(It’s been at least 5 minutes now…)
After waiting a long time I decided to force-quit Updatest and run it again. Then it did show my apps (and updates).
What’s the benefit of adopting apps in Homebrew, when using this app?
(the few apps that I inspected only have older versions as a Homebrew cask…)
Hey folks! Actual dev of Updatest here.
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That extremely long wait time was a bug I introduced and hopefully just resolved. Try checking for updates for Updatest and installing the latest version. You should only have to wait seconds for the app to load (depending on how large your app list is). 20-30s is okay for large App libraries, minutes is a bit of a problem, and hours = something wrong.
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Adopting to homebrew doesn’t actually change the underlying .app bundle, it just allows Homebrew to serve you updates if they come up. There’s no downside, you don’t lose any settings, etc. It’s just a way for Updatest to guarantee that if an update is pushed to brew, you see it, especially for apps without other ways to update BUT do have a Brew cask.
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Will that replace other app update mechanisms in Updatest?
Or will Updatest try all methods?
(For example check both Sparkle and Homebrew and then offer the newest version found in either one of them)
Hi Rob!
Updatest checks all available methods and tries to show you the latest version based on the sources.
Priority is given to Homebrew if Homebrew has the highest version.
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Hi - thanks for getting involved in the thread.
I’m a long-term user of MacUpdater, and now need a replacement. What is the delta between MacUpdater and Updatest? e.g.
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What update mechanisms does MacUpdater support which Updatest does not support?
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What are examples of major apps Updatest does not support?
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I think the main difference is that MacUpdater 3 has/had a huge database:
The MacUpdater database has information about the latest versions of more than 100.000 apps (see FAQ).
Each day we run dozens of different complicated checks. Our system supports more than 80 different tags to improve support for apps within MacUpdater. Our config file contains manually-curated entries for more than 60.000 apps and is updated around a dozen times each day to keep things working fine.
I don’t think Updatest has its own database, but relies on mechanisms such as the Mac App Store, Homebrew, GitHub and Sparkle. I knew about all of these, but Updatest can also update Electron apps. I’m curious how that works!
So like you I hope @HugeIRL will reply here.
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What are examples of major apps Updatest does not support?
Forgot about this one.
On my Mac the only app from /Applications that does not seem to be supported is Little Snitch (though I might have missed some in my quick glance).
Little Snitch can be adopted into brew, one that’s missing for me is MailArchiver X, but not sure MacUpdater picked that up either
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For me Little Snitch does not show up in the list of adaptable apps (64 others do…).
But you’re right; there seems to be a formula:
I’ll report a bug on Updatest’s GitHub repository.
Maybe I misunderstood, but when I adopted AdGuard VPN, Updatest (actually Homebrew) did install that app again (possibly a different version?).
Hi Rob,
It likely downloaded the app to cache and flagged it for Gatekeeper, but it doesn’t replace the underlying .app bundle so that your settings are preserved.
Hi Shandy
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MacUpdater has a human created database. Updatest supports: Sparkle apps (common), Homebrew, GitHub, Electron and Mac App Store (iOS/normal apps). Brew and Mac App Store require Brew/MAS CLI respectively.
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There likely are a few, mainly things not found in Homebrew. We support most major apps like Office suite, Slack, Developer stuff like Visual Studio, etc. It really just depends on if the developer has created a cask in Homebrew or not, which is pretty rare.
Updatest takes a programatic approach to find updates. In some cases it finds more than MacUpdater as it doesn’t require a human to validate. In some cases it finds less than MacUpdater for more niche/smaller apps that don’t support the sources Updatest uses (Brew, Sparkle, GitHub, Electron, Mac App Store).
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There’s never a replacement of update mechanisms with Updatest, it’s always additive. The idea is the more sources Updatest has, the better/more accurate update detection is.
Updatest actually has a filter “No Source”…
Next to Little Snitch the only “big name” is Reeder, but that might be on me.
@HugeIRL Some questions about my “No Source” entries:
- I have both the classic Reeder (as
/Applications/Reeder.app) and the new Reeder (as/Application/Reeder/Reeder.app) installed. Is that the reason that the new Reeder is listed as “No Source”? What can I do about that? (If I want both apps) - I have some apps installed that don’t have a source in Updatest and they are deprecated in Homebrew; what do you recommend for those? Adopt anyway, or not? (Example: DOSBos-X)
- Karabiner-EventViewer is part of Karabiner-Elements. I can’t adopt both. Should I ignore Karabiner-EventViewer?