As a developer who's led large engineering teams, I've wrestled with tensions between governance and developer productivity before, and this is the right team to solve it. Homebrew is the best way for developers to manage their machines and Workbrew provides all the missing pieces to make it perfect for enterprise organizations too. Workbrew will improve the productivity of millions of developers and organizations by fully unlocking the potential of Homebrew at work." - Joseph Ruscio, General Partner/Heavybit

The Heavybit team is excited to welcome the secure software delivery platform Workbrew to our portfolio. Workbrew is the best way to safely deploy and manage Homebrew at scale. Developers can access all the tools they need to do their jobs, while IT and security teams gain peace of mind.

Countless dedicated users have already adopted the excellent open-source package manager Homebrew to download and install packages and handle dependencies—essentially serving as an App Store for developers on macOS. While Homebrew is a powerful tool, it’s traditionally been a “single-player” experience. As teams and organizations scale, managing Homebrew across devices becomes increasingly challenging for administrators.

Workbrew elegantly complements Homebrew with a “multiplayer” solution tailored for companies. By layering observability, streamlined remote management, and robust security features onto Homebrew, Workbrew saves developers countless hours of friction while equipping IT teams with the tools they need for governance.

Why We’re Excited

Unmanaged devices and unchecked software are among the most crucial problems facing companies today. As a team adds more people, the number and variety of applications that team members download and install increases exponentially from both developer teams and the wider organization. Without visibility into what people are installing, it becomes virtually impossible for IT and security leaders to ensure their organizations are fully compliant with the security and governance policies they’re supposed to be enforcing. At one point or another, many administrators have found themselves having to “just look the other way,” which isn’t tenable in today’s InfoSec environment.

Workbrew represents a transformative step for organizations navigating the delicate balance between developer productivity and enterprise security. Built on the beloved foundation of Homebrew, Workbrew elevates it into a scalable, secure, and team-oriented platform. Developers get the tools they need to do their jobs, while IT and security teams benefit from zero-touch deployment, analytics, observability, remote management, policies, and vulnerability detection—all seamlessly integrated. With Workbrew, organizations can support their developers without compromising on security or efficiency, unlocking the full potential of `brew` at scale.

Going forward, Workbrew will continue to enhance its platform and scale its team. Learn more about Workbrew by visiting the website, or start using the product for free.

Meet the Founders

John Britton

Co-Founder and CEO

John Britton is the CEO and co-founder of Workbrew. A developer, investor, and go-to-market expert, he led Developer Marketing at GitHub and as an early team member at Twilio, he played a key role in launching the platform into popularity. He has also been a Homebrew contributor since 2014.

Vanessa Gennarelli

Co-Founder and COO

Vanessa is a leader with a track record of managing cross-functional teams in rapidly-growing organizations, most recently at GitHub. In 2023, A Book Apart published her book Surviving Change at Work, which garnered attention from Fast Company, Built In, and Design Better. She also sits on the Homebrew Project Leadership Committee.

Mike McQuaid

Co-Founder and CTO

Mike is Workbrew’s CTO and co-founder, Homebrew’s Project Leader, and longest-serving maintainer (since 2009). He spent 10 years at GitHub, leaving as Principal Engineer, and was early at AllTrails and Mendeley. He is the author of Git in Practice (published by Manning in 2014) and writes and speaks about open source and engineering on his site, at conferences, and on podcasts.