Originally published at: MacUpdater Shuts Down, Leaving Users Searching for Alternatives - TidBITS
For the past eight years, MacUpdater has been a go-to utility for those who want a unified way to keep all their macOS apps up to date. It could scan the apps on your Mac, compare them against a regularly updated database of over 100,000 apps, and update many of them with a single click. However, CoreCode, MacUpdater’s developers, announced in mid-2025 that MacUpdater would be discontinued as of 1 January 2026. Since that date has passed, MacUpdater will no longer receive the daily database updates it needs to detect new versions, making it increasingly less useful. CoreCode has released a final “offline” version of MacUpdater 3.5 that is free and will remain usable, but will not perform any online update checks. For more information, see the MacUpdater FAQ.
The reason behind CoreCode’s decision is financial, not technical. The company wrote:
We’ve failed in building a sustainable pricing and sales model (instead trying to sell one-time-purchases). And we’ve not done any marketing to start to widen our audience. Also we’ve failed to enter the corporate / enterprise market. With all interesting technical challenges being solved we feel it is time to move on and leave the boring work of continuing, marketing and monetizing the project to someone else. Especially since it has become apparent that MacUpdater can only be sold profitably with a “subscription-model,” and we will not sell subscription software for ethical reasons.
CoreCode’s Tech Sale & Licensing page makes for fascinating reading. The company details what is required to develop an app like MacUpdater, outlines the problems it faced and how it solved them, and proposes several scenarios for how another company could benefit from acquiring MacUpdater. Particularly interesting is how CoreCode says it won’t move to a subscription model for ethical reasons but then outlines how necessary this is in its baseline scenario:
In the base scenario you don’t need to do anything except convert the existing MacUpdater userbase to a subscription model. We cannot recommend staying on a non-subscription model as that has absolutely not worked out for us. MacUpdater has accumulated 30,000 paid customers. According to a recent poll, around half of the respondents would agree to a subscription model. If you combine the current userbase of 30,000 people with the subscription prices that people agree to (according to the poll), the yearly revenue of MacUpdater with a subscription model would be between €255k and €354k per year (depending on the price-tiering).
Despite 30,000 paid customers and a projected revenue range of $255,000 to $354,000 based on what feels like a lowball estimate of $1.50 to $2.00 monthly cost, no other firm has stepped forward to buy or license MacUpdater. (I’m using dollars rather than euros since they’re roughly equivalent right now.)
Do You Need a Third-Party App Updater?
Not everyone will feel the loss of MacUpdater. Most Mac users get by just fine without a universal update utility, relying on the Mac App Store’s Update pane and the internal update mechanisms built into most independent apps. Personally, I’m not a fan of tools like MacUpdater. I prefer to update most apps when I launch them so I’m more attuned to new features and bugs.
However, MacUpdater was popular with power users who manage dozens of apps outside the Mac App Store and prefer centralized update management over hunting through individual apps. It also appealed to IT administrators and consultants responsible for maintaining multiple Macs, as well as security-conscious users who want to patch vulnerabilities quickly rather than discovering updates only when they happen to launch an app. Those people are now looking for alternatives that can display all available updates in one place.
Alternatives to MacUpdater
No single app currently replicates everything MacUpdater did, but a few apps are aiming to fill the gap. Here are a few notable MacUpdater alternatives, some of which were discussed in a lengthy TidBITS Talk thread about the situation: CleanMyMac, Latest, MacUpdate Desktop, and Updatest.
To compare these utilities, I ran them on my current 14-inch MacBook Pro and my old 27-inch iMac. The MacBook Pro has relatively few apps installed, and I update apps when I use them or when prompted by the App Store, so the apps that need updates are the ones I use infrequently. In contrast, the iMac has accumulated years of cruft from testing numerous apps, and I haven’t used it seriously since mid-2025, so many of its apps need updates. To be clear, these results are representative only of my machines. I install many more apps than most people, but I don’t use Homebrew, where Updatest shines, and my apps seem to skew toward those that use Sparkle. Your mileage will likely vary! (Homebrew is a command-line package manager that can install and update many Mac apps, while Sparkle is an auto-update framework used by numerous independent Mac developers to provide in-app updates.)
The first line in the table below is the MacUpdater 3.5 offline version, which appears to remain the gold standard. After that, I list the four apps I tested, sorted by their success rate on my old iMac, which feels like a more representative testbed than my newly configured MacBook Pro. Although this sorting favors Latest, note that it also identified the fewest total apps on both machines.
| App | iMac Total | iMac Updates | iMac % | MacBook Total | MacBook Updates | MacBook % |
| MacUpdater | 163 | 100 | 61% | 89 | 24 | 27% |
| Latest | 142 | 62 | 44% | 85 | 14 | 16% |
| CleanMyMac | 190 | 51 | 27% | 106 | 4 | 4% |
| MacUpdate Desktop | 229 | 41 | 18% | 156 | 9 | 6% |
| Updatest | 167 | 25 | 15% | 95 | 5 | 5% |
Some notes on each one:
- CleanMyMac: MacPaw’s all-in-one maintenance utility includes an Updater module that identifies apps that need updates and can update them directly. It has an attractive and informative interface, complete with release notes for versions beyond the latest. I suspect CleanMyMac relies primarily on Sparkle but misses some apps; I wonder if it restricts itself to those it knows it can update directly without trouble. Although CleanMyMac does much more than update apps, it’s expensive at $34.99 per year, or $89 for a one-time purchase. It’s also available in Setapp.
- Latest: A free, open source app, Latest monitors apps that use Sparkle, which theoretically limits its coverage, though it performed well for me. You can set it to include apps with “limited support,” which may have incomplete or incorrect update information and can’t be updated directly within Latest. Another setting also includes unsupported apps—those that have no update information—in the count. I enabled both settings: on my iMac, the full+limited count was 41+21, whereas on the MacBook Pro it was 6+8. While Latest is still maturing, it offers a capable, no-cost solution for those whose apps rely heavily on Sparkle.
- MacUpdate Desktop: The MacUpdate Desktop app, currently in beta and requiring a $9.99-per-year subscription to install apps, integrates with the MacUpdate website, which tracks updates for numerous Mac apps. That gives it access to some of the most complete information about apps and updates. It found by far the most apps on my Macs but didn’t offer as many updates as others—oddly, it failed to flag even the Sparkle-enabled Arc as outdated. It’s unclear whether the limited update detection is due to its beta status or a design limitation. I found MacUpdate Desktop’s dark, low-contrast interface notably difficult to read and use, but it lets you ignore updates, back up the current version before updating, and uninstall apps. It also shows what’s running and lets you launch inactive apps. MacUpdate Desktop may be most attractive to those who already rely on the MacUpdate website to find updates to their apps.
- Updatest: I appreciate how Updatest identifies the source of its app update information as Sparkle, Electron (a popular but controversial framework for creating cross-platform apps), Homebrew, GitHub, and the Mac App Store. I didn’t install Homebrew or the Mac App Store command-line tool, so my Updatest numbers are lower than they should be. It can update Sparkle apps directly, though Electron apps must update themselves, and all Updatest can do is launch them. Updatest wasn’t as good at displaying release notes as some of the others. Its marquee feature is the ability to adopt apps into Homebrew, allowing them to be updated via Homebrew commands or Updatest. For those looking to replace MacUpdater, it garnered the most positive comments in TidBITS Talk. Updatest costs $9.99 as a one-time purchase, which is attractive, and its automatic detection approach may prove more sustainable than MacUpdater’s manually maintained database.
None of these alternatives fully replaces MacUpdater’s combination of a massive database and years of refinement, but my sense is that Updatest comes closest for most MacUpdater users, particularly if you use Homebrew or are willing to adopt apps into it. Latest is also attractive if you have a lot of indie software that relies on Sparkle. For those already using CleanMyMac, its Updater module may be sufficient for mainstream apps. MacUpdate Desktop could also be a contender if it can connect more updates to the many apps it identifies—a more readable interface would also help. And if someone does acquire MacUpdater’s technology and database, we’ll be sure to let you know.
If you’re currently using MacUpdater, which of these is the most interesting for you?
