Via Jeff Johnson and Michael Tsai (@mjtsai), I see that CoreCode is planning to discontinue its MacUpdater tool and is hoping to sell or license it.
From CoreCode’s news page (note that the press release is a PDF):
2025-04-30: MacUpdater Discontinuation and Acquisition Opportunities:
We will stop developing MacUpdater after the discontinuation of version 3.x next January. However, we invite interested parties to aquire and continue the project or license the technology. Read the full press release here.
The product is excellent and the support team oustanding, so I hope that MacUpdater doesn’t suffer the fate of so many other useful tools.
What do you all think of the alternative solution of using Homebrew & a GUI front end called “AppLite”? Seems a bit complicated for those not adept at using the Terminal.
AppLite doesn’t require Terminal in its install and config. It really is a GUI solution - and a nice looking one. For me, its range of apps is nowhere near as good as MacUpdater - but will hopefully it continue to broaden its defined range to apps.
Got it, but to avoid having to reinstall all of one’s apps via Homebrew, there’s still a somewhat involved process of getting Homebrew to adopt them, isn’t there?
FYI, I have just done a census of the apps on my Mac. I (an app junkie?) have 203 apps from outside the Mac App Store. Only 29 can be managed by Applite (14%). Not enough to make me use Applite beyond a little testing and evaluation.
Since the news of MacUpdater’s announcement first broke a few months ago I have been using a small app called Latest, alongside MacUpdater.
It is not as full featured as MacUpdater but is free and seems pretty solid.
For me, Latest has better coverage than Applite. Latest includes 33% of my apps which do not come from the Mac App Store. Apart from those in the App Store, Latest only detects apps that use the Sparkle framework for updates.
First I’d heard of this. What a shame! The first thing I do each morning is to see what MacUpdater is offering me. I checked their website and for a standard user they are charging $4.40. I’d be happy to pay ten times that for such a useful utility! But probably would not use it if it went to a subscription model, as I dislike those.
By comparison, the old MacUpdate Desktop app used to cost $20/year, IIRC. Similar function, but completely different developer.
I have been aggressively reducing the number of software/service subscriptions I pay for, but I would be happy pay a reasonable subscription fee for MacUpdater. Four or five dollars a month sounds right to me.
Unfortunately, I imagine the developers have looked at options like that and decided that for whatever reason, that wouldn’t work for them.
There’s a new-ish app called Updatest https://updatest.app that checks for homebrew, app store and sparkle updates, any app it finds that can be updated via homebrew it prompts you to adopt it.
One time fee and I’m liking it so far.
Thanks @adieb. This does look promising but I don’t understand the implication of migrating to Homebrew or allowing Homebrew to adopt my apps? How does it update apps that can’t be adopted?
I do already use Homebrew for a couple of apps, and as far as I can see Updatest works by allowing Homebrew to “adopt” my apps. What are the downsides, if any, of this?
One big question…can Updatest be uninstalled and everything be de-adopted de-migrated if desired?
The Reddit Thread is quite informative. It includes this statement from the maker:
"MacUpdater (in its current state) will always pick up more app updates than Latest, Updatest and the competitors. It relied on telemetry data and a manually crafted/maintained list of update sources which is why it’s shutting down (imo). Too expensive for what they sell it for, and too hard to change the price now and not upset the community.
Updatest tries to solve this problem by offering you ways to move your apps to Brew and have them be updated there, along side Mac App Store apps and Sparkle."
Planning to keep a close watch on this, and whether MacUpdater gets a buyer, before jumping in.
I sent feedback to Apple suggesting they buy it. Though I expect their policy is one where they prefer all apps to be installed through the App Store, and have that act as a software manager.
The Developer has already replied very helpfully to my questions on the second Reddit thread:
"Totally appreciate the caution.
Everything you do with Homebrew is reversible. You can straight up remove it, or unadopt apps (I’ve explained how to a few people here, but I should really make a button in the UI).
When you adopt an .app to Homebrew, it creates a link between Homebrew and the App itself, and that link is called a Cask which contains metadata for the app and its version (community or the developer of the app maintained). The Cask itself needs to exist first though, which is what Updatest helps you find.
It’s not like it hooks into the app directly or takes control over it, etc.
Edit: The only downsides are Casks can sometimes be a bit slower to receive updates, but Updatest always checks from every source it can to grab you an update. So if the app uses Sparkle and you’ve adopted it via Homebrew, but only Sparkle has the update right now (not Homebrew), you’ll still see an update available and be able to update!
Also: Don’t adopt paid Mac App Store apps to Homebrew. There can be weirdness with that. There’s toggles in Settings to turn off adoption for Mac App Store apps."
