MacUpdater alternatives: keep every Mac app up to date

Checked 20 October 2026 against each developer's own website, GitHub releases and documentation. Prices are in the developer's currency and change; see the sources at the end.

What happened to MacUpdater

CoreCode sold MacUpdater 3 with a stated lifetime of "until 2026-01-01", and kept to it. Its website now says (CoreCode, MacUpdater; FAQ):

• There will be no MacUpdater 4 and no continuation of the product.
• Daily maintenance has stopped, and updates are no longer verified.
• Version 3.5 is unsupported but free to use, including the former Pro features. It needs macOS 13 or later and runs natively on Apple silicon.
• The FAQ says 3.5 can still tell you about updates during 2026, but the number of apps it can update falls from about 7,000 to about 3,500, and the database server is due to be turned off after another year.
• CoreCode's reason: it refused to sell MacUpdater as a subscription, and the daily upkeep wasn't sustainable for a small team. It recommends the free app Latest, used alongside 3.5.

So you can keep 3.5 for the rest of 2026 as a second opinion. Because nobody checks its information any more, it's not something to rely on for security updates.

What to look for in a replacement

MacUpdater worked from a central database that CoreCode maintained by hand. Most replacements work differently: they read the update information each app already publishes. That changes what they can see:

• App Store apps: the App Store updates them itself. Latest, Updatest and CleanMyMac can list them too, and in Terminal the free mas tool does.
• Sparkle apps: apps that update through the Sparkle framework publish a feed of new versions, which these tools can read.
• Homebrew casks: apps you installed with brew install --cask have their versions in Homebrew.
• Electron apps and GitHub releases: some tools check these too.
• Vendors with their own updaters, such as Microsoft and Adobe, update through their own apps, which remain the reliable route for those suites.

Also check whether a tool installs updates itself or only tells you about them. On macOS 13 and later, a tool that replaces other apps needs the App Management permission, which you allow in System Settings › Privacy & Security.

The alternatives

Latest

Latest by Max Langer is free and open source (GPL-3.0). It checks apps from the Mac App Store and apps that update through Sparkle, and can update them from its window (Latest on GitHub). Version 0.11, from June 2025, is the current release; it needs macOS 10.15 or later and separates apps with full support from those with "limited support", which are hidden unless you turn them on in Settings. Install it from the developer's site or with brew install --cask latest. It's the simplest option and the one CoreCode points to. It doesn't cover Homebrew, and releases are infrequent.

Updatest

Updatest scans each app for the update sources it supports: Homebrew, the Mac App Store, Sparkle, Electron and GitHub Releases. It updates apps itself, for which it needs the App Management permission, and requires macOS 15 or later. Its site says it has joined Workbrew and is now free to download and use. An optional subscription, Updatest Network, widens coverage using anonymized version data from other users: $1.99 a month for 3 Macs or $12.99 a year for 10 (Updatest Network). It covers the most sources of anything here.

CleanMyMac

MacPaw's CleanMyMac includes an Updater for App Store apps, Sparkle apps and other apps, and macOS. It's one part of a larger clean-up and security suite, at $39.95 a year or $119.95 once for one Mac from MacPaw's store. MacPaw notes that the Mac App Store edition leaves out App Store and macOS updates. Worth it if you'd use the rest of the suite; Tend vs CleanMyMac and CleanMyMac alternatives go into the other features.

Homebrew, mas and topgrade

If you install apps with Homebrew, brew outdated and brew upgrade already do MacUpdater's job for those apps, and brew upgrade --cask --greedy includes casks for apps that update themselves. The free mas tool (version 7.0.0, May 2026) does the same for App Store apps with mas outdated and mas update. topgrade (free, GPL-3.0, version 17.14.0 from 19 October 2026) detects the tools you use and runs their update commands in one go; install it with brew install topgrade. How to update all your apps explains each command and what it changes. None of these see apps you installed by dragging them from a disk image.

No extra tool at all

Turn on automatic updates in the App Store, leave Sparkle apps' "check automatically" setting on, and let Microsoft's and Adobe's own updaters run. With Software Update for macOS, that keeps most apps current without another tool; what you miss are apps with no updater at all, such as some small utilities.

Side by side

Where MacUpdater was stronger

Its hand-checked database was the point. Because CoreCode tracked apps itself, MacUpdater could report updates for apps that publish no feed and aren't in Homebrew or the App Store, its database covered about 7,000 apps before the shutdown, and CoreCode verified updates before listing them. Tools that read each app's own feed can't see an app that doesn't publish one. Updatest's optional Network is the closest thing to that shared knowledge now; the rest rely on what each app announces.

Which to choose

• Choose Latest if most of your apps come from the App Store or update through Sparkle, and you want something free and simple.
• Choose Updatest if you're on macOS 15 or later and use a mix of Homebrew, Electron and GitHub-distributed apps.
• Choose CleanMyMac if you'd use its clean-up and malware tools anyway; the updater comes with it.
• Choose Homebrew with mas or topgrade if you already install your apps from Terminal.
• Choose nothing extra if you keep automatic updates on and don't mind opening an app now and then to let it update.

Where Tend fits

Tend isn't a dedicated updater, but its free Updates page covers much of the same ground in one list: macOS updates from Software Update, App Store apps (when mas is installed with Homebrew, because Apple doesn't let other apps read App Store updates directly), Homebrew formulae and casks, and other apps in your Applications folders that publish a Sparkle update feed. It installs App Store and Homebrew updates in one click and opens Software Update for macOS. For the Sparkle apps, it reads their feeds and shows the new version with release notes and the download page; the app itself does the update, and Tend never downloads or installs those. Apps with neither a feed nor Homebrew aren't covered, the same limit as the feed-based tools above. How the Updates page works.

Questions

Related guides

Sources

• CoreCode, MacUpdater and MacUpdater FAQ, checked 20 October 2026
• TidBITS, MacUpdater shuts down, leaving users searching for alternatives (9 January 2026, third party)
• Max Langer, Latest and Latest on GitHub (release 0.11, 12 June 2025)
• Workbrew, Updatest and Updatest Network, checked 20 October 2026
• MacPaw, CleanMyMac, MacPaw Store and Feature availability and differences, checked 20 October 2026
• Homebrew manual; mas (release 7.0.0, 4 May 2026); topgrade (release 17.14.0, 19 October 2026)
• Tend's Updates page as of version 1.3; see Updates help and pricing

MacUpdater is a trademark of CoreCode; CleanMyMac is a trademark of MacPaw. Other product names are trademarks of their owners. Tend isn't affiliated with any of them. Spotted something out of date? Tell us and we'll fix it.