Every day, tens of millions of Mac developers depend on Homebrew to install and update the tools they need to do their jobs. Homebrew has become the de facto gateway to the developer toolkit on macOS. But there's a catch – while developers love Homebrew's simplicity for personal use, enterprise IT and security teams face a constant struggle managing and securing it across thousands of corporate laptops.
Enter Workbrew, the startup bridging this critical gap between developer productivity and enterprise security - today out of beta and generally available. We're excited to share more on our investment in Workbrew and their $5M funding announcement. Watch my interview with CEO John Britton below for more.
The Company
Workbrew offers the first enterprise-grade platform for deploying, managing, and securing Homebrew across organizations. Their mission is to unlock the freedom of tool choice at scale by making all the world’s software discoverable and instantly available to everyone. With the release of Workbrew 1.0, they have taken Homebrew from a "single-player" to "multi-player" experience, bridging the gap between developer productivity and enterprise security needs.
Why You Should Pay Attention
Homebrew operates independently on each developer's machine with no centralized management. As the number of devices in an organization increases, keeping developers productive and secure becomes untenable. Fortune 500 companies and startups alike are seeking a solution to this growing pain point. With developer tools critical to enterprise operations, the need for robust management solutions is high on the priority list. Workbrew addresses this need by:
- Solving the unique challenges of enterprise Homebrew deployment, which currently lacks any centralized management capabilities
- Helping IT and security teams efficiently manage and secure their developer tool ecosystem
- Enabling organizations to maintain developer productivity while ensuring compliance with security policies
The Details
Workbrew's platform offers a comprehensive suite of tools designed to streamline enterprise Homebrew management at any level through deployment, analytics & observability, remote management, and security & compliance.
Deployment
Workbrew provides zero-touch deployment of `brew`, helping developers get up and running faster than ever with a consistent environment. This includes support for standard (non-admin) user accounts, more options for workspace admins, and flexible access control. You can deploy Workbrew simply through your existing mobile device management (MDM) tool, with even deeper integrations with Jamf, Kandji, Fleet, and SimpleMDM.
Analytics & Observability
IT and security teams gain actionable insights into their fleet with full visibility of installed packages, versions, third-party sources, and known vulnerabilities.
Remote Management
Workbrew provides a centralized management platform for installing, removing, and upgrading software across the entire fleet. Configure default packages and flexibly target individual devices, by group, or the entire fleet.
Security & Compliance
Workbrew lets you choose the access control model that works for your organization from fully managed to gentle guardrails to keep your team on track. You can set and enforce policies for packages, upgrades, software licenses, and third-party sources.
Organizations can get started with Workbrew right away with the Free plan that includes zero-touch deployment of ‘`brew`, and full visibility into the packages and versions being used across their organization. The Pro plan incorporates the remote management capabilities and additional security and compliance features. Finally, Workbrew Enterprise is built for organizations with sophisticated security and compliance requirements, especially companies in regulated industries like finance, healthcare, insurance, and government.
By focusing on bringing the outstanding developer experience afforded by Homebrew to the enterprise, Workbrew's platform is particularly well-suited for organizations struggling with the complexity of managing developer tools at scale. And looking ahead, Workbrew's technical architecture is designed to expand beyond the Mac ecosystem with Linux and Windows support in beta.
Why We're Invested
Led by an exceptional founding team including John Britton (CEO), an expert in developer tools having spent his career at GitHub and Twilio, alongside CTO Mike McQuaid, the current Project Leader and maintainer of Homebrew for the past 15 years, and Vanessa Gennarelli (COO), both formerly of GitHub. Workbrew brings deep expertise in developer tools and enterprise needs. As Homebrew continues to be essential for modern development, with tens of millions of developers already using it, the demand for enterprise management solutions will only increase. Workbrew's early traction with customers like Emburse and Vespa AI demonstrates real-world applicability and value.
Developer productivity and security compliance must coexist, and Workbrew offers a crucial bridge between individual developer needs and enterprise requirements. By enabling organizations to efficiently manage their developer tool ecosystem, Workbrew is not just building a commercial layer on top of Homebrew – it's helping shape the future of enterprise developer experience.
Get Involved
Watch John and Haley’s interview below to learn more about Workbrew, and get in touch to learn more and visit workbrew.com to get started.
