Mac – What are the key differences between fink and macports

finkmacportspackage-management

I don't want to start a holywar, but as far as I am concerned, I am on track according to the faq.

I wanted to know the key differences between macports and fink. I am a long time macports user and am looking for some fresh blood (if I may say so). I was looking towards fink. I'd appreciate it if anyone listed out a few differences between these two package management systems.

Best Answer

Fink is a binary distribution using tools that originated from Debian (e.g., apt-get, etc.)

Macports is built around the philosophy used by the FreeBSD ports collection. In this you download tarballs directly from the upstream source, apply patches and compile. It's entirely automated.

I haven't used Fink in quite a while (since Panther) because it didn't seem very well done to me.