Sapphire, a new experimental package manager written in Rust, has emerged as a potential alternative to the popular Homebrew package manager for macOS. While still in alpha stage, this project has sparked significant discussion within the developer community about the future of package management on Apple's platform and the merits of rewriting established tools in more performant languages.
The Motivation Behind Sapphire
The creator of Sapphire, who goes by alexykn in the discussion, initially started building the tool for personal use. Their primary goal wasn't necessarily to compete with Homebrew but to create a foundation for a declarative package and system management solution for macOS. The developer expressed frustration with Homebrew's performance when wrapping its commands, which led them to build Sapphire from scratch using Rust.
I wanted and still want, to build a declarative package + system managing solution on top. The idea was to get into rust with that. Having the base written in the same language instead of wrapping commands also gives more flexibility there.
This highlights a common pattern in the open-source community, where developers often create tools to solve their specific needs before those tools evolve into broader solutions.
Performance Considerations and Technical Approach
Many commenters focused on performance comparisons between Sapphire and Homebrew. While Homebrew operations can sometimes feel sluggish, several users and even Homebrew maintainers pointed out that the bottlenecks aren't necessarily related to Ruby as the implementation language. Instead, they stem from architectural decisions and courtesy limitations.
One Homebrew maintainer explained that parallel downloads aren't implemented in Homebrew not because of technical limitations but due to concerns about overwhelming download sources with too many concurrent requests. This consideration becomes increasingly important as a package manager's user base grows.
Sapphire currently implements parallel downloads and installations, which contributes to its perceived speed advantage. The project focuses primarily on supporting bottle installations (pre-compiled packages) and casks (applications), which cover the majority of use cases for macOS users.
Community Reception and Feature Requests
The community's response to Sapphire has been a mix of enthusiasm and skepticism. Many users expressed frustration with Homebrew's terminology, which uses brewing-related terms like casks, kegs, and cellars instead of more standard package management terminology. Several commenters urged the Sapphire developer to adopt clearer naming conventions.
Command name length was another point of contention, with multiple users suggesting that sapphire is too long compared to brew and recommending a shorter alternative to improve user experience.
Some users also requested features that Homebrew currently lacks, such as better multi-user support, per-user installations, and a more declarative approach to package management. These requests highlight areas where a new package manager could potentially differentiate itself from Homebrew.
Development Status and Roadmap
Sapphire is explicitly labeled as alpha software, with the developer cautioning that it's experimental, under heavy development, and may be unstable. The project's current capabilities include bottle installation and uninstallation, cask management, parallel downloads and installs, automatic dependency resolution, and early implementation of building formulae from source.
The roadmap includes implementing upgrade and cleanup commands, adding a reinstall feature, supporting prefix isolation, and creating an initialization helper. The developer has been transparent about the project's pace, noting that progress may be slow as they work on it primarily during weekends alongside a full-time job.
While Sapphire can currently handle many package installation tasks, it faces significant challenges in fully replicating Homebrew's functionality, particularly around building packages from source. The developer acknowledged that a full Ruby-to-Rust transpiler would be out of scope, suggesting they might settle for automatic build system detection based on archive structure instead.
Current Status of Sapphire
- Bottle installation and uninstallation
- Cask installation and uninstallation
- Parallel downloads and installs for speed
- Automatic dependency resolution and installation
- Early implementation of building formulae from source
- ARM-only support (x86 support might be added eventually)
Project Structure
sapphire-core: Core library for fetching, dependency resolution, archive extraction, etc.sapphire-cli: Command-line interface wrapping the core library
Roadmap
Upgradecommand to update installed packagesCleanupfor old downloads, versions, cachesReinstallcommand for quick re-pours- Prefix isolation: support for
/opt/sapphireas standalone layout sapphire inithelper to bootstrap environment- Ongoing bug fixes and stability improvements
The Broader Context of Package Management
The discussion around Sapphire highlights the ongoing evolution of package management on macOS. Homebrew itself displaced earlier solutions like MacPorts and Fink by offering what many perceived as a better user experience, despite technical trade-offs.
Several commenters noted that the ideal package manager would combine the performance benefits of compiled languages like Rust with the flexibility and ease of contribution that Homebrew's Ruby-based formula system provides. Others pointed to alternative approaches like Nix or pkgx (another Rust-based package manager being developed by Homebrew's original creator).
As macOS continues to evolve, particularly with the transition to Apple Silicon, there's clearly an appetite for package management solutions that can adapt to these changes while addressing long-standing pain points.
While Sapphire is still in its early stages and faces significant challenges before it could truly replace Homebrew, its development represents the healthy ecosystem of innovation that keeps developer tools evolving. Whether it ultimately succeeds as a Homebrew replacement or simply introduces ideas that improve the broader package management landscape, projects like Sapphire play an important role in pushing the state of the art forward.
Reference: Sapphire