secretive VS HomeBrew

Compare secretive vs HomeBrew and see what are their differences.

secretive

Store SSH keys in the Secure Enclave (by maxgoedjen)

HomeBrew

🍺 The missing package manager for macOS (or Linux) (by Homebrew)
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secretive HomeBrew
23 1,281
6,864 39,373
- 0.8%
7.4 10.0
29 days ago 7 days ago
Swift Ruby
MIT License BSD 2-clause "Simplified" License
The number of mentions indicates the total number of mentions that we've tracked plus the number of user suggested alternatives.
Stars - the number of stars that a project has on GitHub. Growth - month over month growth in stars.
Activity is a relative number indicating how actively a project is being developed. Recent commits have higher weight than older ones.
For example, an activity of 9.0 indicates that a project is amongst the top 10% of the most actively developed projects that we are tracking.

secretive

Posts with mentions or reviews of secretive. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2023-09-25.
  • GitHub Passkeys are generally available
    5 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 25 Sep 2023
    Secretive might be what you're looking for: https://github.com/maxgoedjen/secretive
  • Zero Effort Private Key Compromise: Abusing SSH-Agent for Lateral Movement
    1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 15 Sep 2023
    Good find! I was always curious how this worked.

    I'm a big fan of tools like secretive[1] that can help solve this problem by using biometrics to shift the UX/security trade-off and thus make it feasible to always require some kind of authentication to sign a token with a key.

    I'm not aware of any tools that do the same for Linux, and a quick Google search doesn't turn up much[2]. It does look like you can at least get a notification[3], though.

    This could provide another layer of protection on the user's endpoint device in addition the network monitoring called out in the article. Defense in depth, and all that.

    [1] https://github.com/maxgoedjen/secretive

    [2] https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/705144/unlock-an-ss...

    [3] https://www.insecure.ws/2013/09/25/ssh-agent-notification.ht...

  • Tell HN: 1Password 8.10.8 update corrupted data
    1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 29 Jun 2023
    https://github.com/maxgoedjen/secretive

    > Secretive is an app for storing and managing SSH keys in the Secure Enclave

  • Software Developer Mac Apps
    44 projects | /r/macapps | 17 May 2023
    Secretive, which replaces painfully managing SSH keys from the command line / editor. Getting a Touch ID prompt is so much better, though migrating computers will suck.
  • SSH keys setup, use, and proper OpSec
    1 project | /r/linux | 16 Apr 2023
    consider using a higher-security setup. Secretive is an SSH agent for MacOS that stores keys within the host's secure enclave, where they can't be copied off, and can optionally require touchid validation before the key is used. This way, if you forward it the key to an compromised host and an attacker tries to use them, it'll still require a fingerprint (but, balance it with the fact that Secretive doesn't have nearly as many eyeballs checking it, yet!). Likewise, yubikeys can be setup to store SSH keys inside them and require touch to use.
  • Secretive: Store SSH Keys in the Secure Enclave
    1 project | /r/hypeurls | 9 Mar 2023
    4 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 9 Mar 2023
  • Russhian Roulette: 1/6 chance of posting your SSH private key on pastebin
    7 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 28 Jan 2023
    You can store them in the Secure Enclave on OSX and require TouchID to use the key for signing.

    See: https://github.com/maxgoedjen/secretive

  • Use TouchID to Authenticate Sudo on macOS
    11 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 26 Aug 2022
    Not exactly connected but the same crowd interested in this topic may also be interested in this tool to store SSH private keys in the Secure Enclave, kind of like what can be done with a YubiKey:

    https://github.com/maxgoedjen/secretive

    I've been looking for something like this for 3-4 years but only found it six months ago (in an HN thread). I use separate keys for every use case, and now know every time a key is used for any purpose, whether it's connecting to source control or my text editor is connecting to a remote VM.

    Only thing I haven't figured out is how to do git signatures with these sorts of keys, but I haven't debugged it at all.

  • A sane SSH(1) key management example
    2 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 18 Aug 2022
    On Macs, Secretive [0] is great. It creates keys in the secret enclave, from where they can't be read, only used for signing requests. TouchID authorisation is optional but it's so quick and easy that I keep it on for all keys.

    It can also use Smart Cards (Yubikeys are called out by name in the readme).

    A forwarded agent will have the same level of security, meaning that if the forwarded agent needs to use a key in Secretive, it will have to be authorised locally - and even if TouchID is disabled, you are notified if a key is used.

    [0] https://github.com/maxgoedjen/secretive/

HomeBrew

Posts with mentions or reviews of HomeBrew. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2024-04-08.
  • Top Homebrew Alternative: ServBay Becomes the Go-To for Developers
    1 project | dev.to | 18 Apr 2024
    Homebrew is a highly popular package manager on macOS and Linux systems, enabling users to easily install, update, and uninstall command-line tools and applications. Its design philosophy focuses on simplifying the software installation process on macOS, eliminating the need for manual downloads and compilations of software packages.
  • Software Engineering Workflow
    6 projects | dev.to | 8 Apr 2024
    Homebrew - package manager for linux-based OSs.
  • Simulate your first Lightning transaction on the Bitcoin regtest network Part 1 (MacOS)
    3 projects | dev.to | 30 Mar 2024
    Package Manager: Homebrew
  • Tools for Linux Distro Hoppers
    7 projects | dev.to | 27 Mar 2024
    Hopping from one distro to another with a different package manager might require some time to adapt. Using a package manager that can be installed on most distro is one way to help you get to work faster. Flatpak is one of them; other alternative are Snap, Nix or Homebrew. Flatpak is a good starter, and if you have a bunch of free time, I suggest trying Nix.
  • SQLite Schema Diagram Generator
    13 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 23 Mar 2024
    Are you using SQLite that ships with macOS, or SQLite installed from homebrew?

    I had a different problem in the past with the SQLite that ships with macOS, and have been using SQLite from homebrew since.

    So if it’s the one that comes with macOS that gives you this problem that you are having, try using SQLite from homebrew instead.

    https://brew.sh/

  • How to install (Ubuntu 22.10 VM) vagrant on Mac M1 ship using QEMU
    1 project | dev.to | 21 Mar 2024
    Before we begin, make sure you have Homebrew installed on your Mac. Homebrew is a package manager that makes it easy to install software and dependencies. You can install Homebrew by following the instructions on their website: https://brew.sh/
  • Perfect Elixir: Environment Setup
    3 projects | dev.to | 18 Mar 2024
    I’m on MacOS and erlang.org, elixir-lang.org, and postgresql.org all suggest installation via Homebrew, which is a very popular package manager for MacOS.
  • You're Installing Node.js Wrong. That's OK, Here Is How To Fix It 🙌
    2 projects | dev.to | 14 Mar 2024
    I have always either installed Node from the installer provided by the Nodejs website or, via Brew in macOS. I have also used nvm in the past but did not know that there was a best practice to guide us.
  • Test Driving a Rails API - Part One
    11 projects | dev.to | 11 Mar 2024
    A running Rails application needs a database to connect to. You may already have your database of choice installed, but if not, I recommend PostgreSQL, or Postgres for short. On a Mac, probably the easiest way to install it is with Posrgres.app. Another option, the one I prefer, is to use Homebrew. With Homebrew installed, this command will install PostgreSQL version 16 along with libpq:
  • Effective Neovim Setup. A Beginner’s Guide
    5 projects | dev.to | 9 Mar 2024
    On a macOS machine, you can use homebrew by running the command.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing secretive and HomeBrew you can also consider the following projects:

sekey - Use Touch ID / Secure Enclave for SSH Authentication!

spack - A flexible package manager that supports multiple versions, configurations, platforms, and compilers.

YubiKey-Guide - Guide to using YubiKey for GnuPG and SSH

asdf - Extendable version manager with support for Ruby, Node.js, Elixir, Erlang & more

openssh-sk-winhello - A helper for OpenSSH to interact with FIDO2 and U2F security keys through native Windows Hello API

Visual Studio Code - Visual Studio Code

Vault - A tool for secrets management, encryption as a service, and privileged access management

winget-cli - WinGet is the Windows Package Manager. This project includes a CLI (Command Line Interface), PowerShell modules, and a COM (Component Object Model) API (Application Programming Interface).

vault-plugin-secrets-onepasswor

osxfuse - FUSE extends macOS by adding support for user space file systems

rust-u2f - U2F security token emulator written in Rust

Chocolatey - Chocolatey - the package manager for Windows