Ask HN: Replacement for MacUpdater which reached EOL on 2026-01-01
3 comments
We ran into the same gap after MacUpdater started drifting. What worked reasonably well for us was splitting the problem instead of trying to replace it 1:1.
Homebrew (plus brew outdated) covered CLI tools and a subset of apps. For GUI apps, we relied on Sparkle-based self-updaters where available and a small script that checks bundle versions against a curated list for the rest.
It’s more manual than MacUpdater, but the upside is you control what’s checked and when. In practice, most actively maintained apps do self-update now, so the remaining pain tends to be niche or enterprise software rather than mainstream apps.
Homebrew (plus brew outdated) covered CLI tools and a subset of apps. For GUI apps, we relied on Sparkle-based self-updaters where available and a small script that checks bundle versions against a curated list for the rest.
It’s more manual than MacUpdater, but the upside is you control what’s checked and when. In practice, most actively maintained apps do self-update now, so the remaining pain tends to be niche or enterprise software rather than mainstream apps.
Latest: https://max.codes/latest/
Great suggestion, will try it out!
Unfortunately, Latest supports much fewer apps - maybe those that self-update?
Unfortunately, Latest supports much fewer apps - maybe those that self-update?
Do you know of a good replacement? Does anyone else publicly track latest versions of software and their binaries for (semi-)automated updating?
Or do most apps nowadays use self-updating, so there's no more need for such a central update management app?
Announcement:
MacUpdater 3.5 is now unsupported but free-to-use including all previous "Pro" features. For any questions or more info regarding the disontinuation head to the F.A.Q.
URL: https://www.corecode.io/macupdater/index.html