Looking for a MacUpdater replacement

MacUpdater stopped selling and supporting on 1 January 2026, and CoreCode's own release notes say the update database server will be kept running until 31 December 2026. Floodtide is built so that particular failure cannot happen again.

Download for macOSBuy · £10.99 once

Where the alternatives stand

Mac app updaters compared, checked 19 October 2026
AppPricePricing modelUpdates frommacOS minimumStatus in October 2026
Floodtide£10.99 once for 3 Macs; £19.99 for 6One-time purchase. The Tide, an optional add-on at £9.99 a year, adds hand-researched apps; nothing free moves behind it.Homebrew casks, Sparkle feeds, GitHub Releases, Mac App Store apps (through a privileged helper) and a hand-researched feed of about 2,000 appsmacOS 13 or later, Intel and Apple siliconOn sale and maintained; 14-day full trial, scanning stays free after it, no account needed
MacUpdater 3.5 (CoreCode)FreeNo longer sold. CoreCode says version 3.5 is "free to use for everyone and indefinitely".Its own database. CoreCode says the number of apps it can update has dropped from about 7,000 to about 3,500 and will fall further.macOS 13 or later, per the CoreCode product pageSales and support ended in January 2026. CoreCode says the database server will be kept running until 31 December 2026 and has announced nothing for after that.
UpdatestFree. The optional Updatest Network costs $1.99 a month for up to 3 Macs or $12.99 a year for up to 10Free since 14 October 2026, when Updatest joined Workbrew. Only the optional Network, which shares version reports between Macs, is sold.Homebrew casks and formulae, App Store, Sparkle, Electron, GitHubmacOS 15 or laterMaintained; free since 14 October 2026; part of Workbrew
LatestFreeFree and open source (GPL-3.0)Mac App Store apps and apps that update through Sparkle, per its READMENot stated in our sourcesNo stable release since 0.11, with 0.12 in beta; repository last changed July 2026
Version Tracker€19.90 a year, or €49.90 once for the current major versionYearly subscription, or a one-time purchase of the current major version. The free version scans and shows updates; installing needs a paid tier.51 sources by its own count; the kinds are not statedmacOS 15 or laterLaunched August 2026; 7-day trial

Prices and requirements for other apps are as their own pages state them; "not stated" means the sources listed at the foot of this page do not say.

Checking installed apps for security problems, checked 30 October 2026
AppSecurity check of installed apps
FloodtideYes, since 1.5, free on every copy: a published security fix, an update its developer marks critical, an outdated Electron or Sparkle inside the app, years without an update, and a signature or notarisation macOS cannot vouch for. Worked out on the Mac.
MacUpdater 3.5 (CoreCode)CoreCode’s FAQ describes warnings for some apps it classes as malware, spyware or adware, without promising completeness. It says MacUpdater is not a virus scanner and that daily maintenance has stopped.
UpdatestShows each app’s code signing and notarisation details and the permissions it needs
Version TrackerIts page says it checks against the public CVE database and Apple’s SOFA advisories, and shows whether each app is signed and notarised

An app is listed only where its own pages say what it checks; the others are left out rather than marked as lacking one. What Floodtide’s security check looks at →

The database is the whole story

“It is completely unsupported and we are no longer performing any daily maintenance.” … “There will be more false-positives without our maintenance to remove beta versions.”

CoreCode, MacUpdater FAQ, on the free 3.5

MacUpdater worked by keeping a catalogue of roughly 100,000 Mac applications and checking, by hand and by crawler, what the current version of each one was. That catalogue was the product. It was also a permanent daily cost that a one-time purchase cannot fund forever, and its developers said as much when they closed: they had failed to build a sustainable pricing model, and the app needed too much daily maintenance for a small team.

Floodtide takes the opposite approach. It never asks a hand-fed database what the latest version is, because live sources already know and maintain themselves:

1. The app tells us itself

Most independent Mac apps ship a Sparkle update feed, and the address of that feed is written inside the app bundle. Floodtide reads it and asks the developer directly. That answer is authoritative and current the second a release ships, and nobody has to curate anything.

2. Homebrew casks, and formulae too

3,316 app bundles can be matched safely through Homebrew, maintained continuously by thousands of contributors as part of infrastructure that millions of developers already depend on. Floodtide matches your installed apps against it and pulls each vendor’s official download. Every one is verified against Homebrew’s checksum, or, where the vendor publishes none, against the developer signature already on the installed copy. Homebrew itself is not required for any of that. If you do run it, Floodtide adds a pane listing every cask, formula and tap it has installed, and upgrades them through brew rather than around it.

3. GitHub Releases and Electron feeds

Apps that publish neither an appcast nor a cask often still cut releases on GitHub or ship an Electron update feed. Floodtide reads both, picks a single unambiguous Mac build instead of guessing between several, and checks the SHA-512 an Electron feed publishes before anything is installed.

4. A signed catalog, and any source you set

For the rest, Floodtide keeps a small signed catalog that only names which source to read for an app, so the reading goes back through the sources above. You can also point an app at a Sparkle URL or a GitHub repository yourself, and that choice is checked ahead of anything Floodtide finds on its own.

Anything else stays visible

Mac App Store apps update in place, inside Floodtide, with no App Store window and no password; only a title too large to be worth installing here, an iPhone or iPad app, an account you are signed out of, or a version the App Store on your Mac is not offering is handed back to the store. Apps Setapp or Microsoft AutoUpdate manage are named as theirs rather than touched, and apps no source can resolve are labelled uncovered, never silently dropped and never paired with a guessed download. One click can send an anonymous coverage request so the missing apps can be prioritised.

Moving across

  1. Download Floodtide and open it. There is no account, and importing from MacUpdater is optional.
  2. It scans your Applications folders and lists what is behind, grouped by what needs a decision from you and what does not.
  3. Press Update All. By default downloads run several at a time with real progress, and anything macOS guards asks for your password once for the whole batch; Update one app at a time, in Settings, trades that for less disk space.
  4. Keep MacUpdater installed as long as you like. Nothing conflicts; Floodtide never touches its data.

Every update keeps the previous version for seven days, so Undo Last Update is always one click away, and each replacement is checked against the signature of the app it replaces before Floodtide considers the job done.

When MacUpdater closes

MacUpdater closes on 31 December 2026, when its update database is switched off. Floodtide already updates the apps that Homebrew, Sparkle feeds and its hand-researched catalogue cover, and that catalogue is included with every licence. Beyond those, the Tide, an optional yearly add-on, adds the apps people ask for, researched by hand, about 50 a week, and answers subscribers’ requests first.

See what the Tide adds →

Common questions

What happens to MacUpdater on 31 December 2026?

CoreCode has said the MacUpdater database server will be kept running until 31 December 2026, and has announced nothing for after that date. Version 3.5 stays free to use, but CoreCode’s FAQ says it can only report updates during 2026, while that server is on. What the shutdown means for your Mac →

Why did MacUpdater shut down?

Its developers said the one-time pricing model could not sustain the work. The product depended on a hand-maintained database of roughly 100,000 applications that needed daily verification, which is a permanent cost that a single sale does not cover.

What makes Floodtide different?

Floodtide does not maintain a hand-fed version database. It reads the Sparkle update feed published inside each app bundle, matches other apps against the community-maintained Homebrew catalog, and falls back to GitHub Releases, Electron update feeds, its own small signed catalog, or a source you set for an app yourself. If no source can prove a safe update, it says the app is uncovered instead of guessing.

Is Floodtide a one-time purchase?

Yes. A licence is £10.99 once for 3 Macs, or £19.99 for 6, with a 14-day full trial and no account. Scanning stays free after the trial; the licence unlocks installing. The Tide is a separate, optional add-on, and a licence never requires it.

Does Floodtide update Mac App Store apps?

Yes. Press Update on a store row and the app updates in place, with no App Store window and no password, through a privileged helper that Floodtide sets up once from Settings. Four cases are handed back to the store: a download too large to be worth installing here, an iPhone or iPad app on Apple silicon, an account you are signed out of, and a version the App Store on your Mac is not offering, which is shown but not counted as an update.

Does Floodtide need Homebrew?

No. Floodtide reads the Homebrew cask catalogue to match apps you installed by hand and fetches each vendor’s own download, and none of that needs Homebrew on the Mac. If Homebrew is present, Floodtide also lists its casks, formulae and taps and upgrades them through brew.

Which macOS versions does Floodtide support?

macOS 13 Ventura or later, on Intel and Apple silicon Macs. Several of the alternatives in the table above need macOS 15 or later.

What is the Tide and do I need it?

The Tide is an optional yearly add-on at £9.99 that adds hand-researched coverage for the apps people ask for and answers subscribers’ requests first. You do not need it to use Floodtide: the licence, the free scan and everything in the free feed stay as they are, and nothing free ever moves behind the Tide.

Can Floodtide import my MacUpdater settings?

Yes, the part that matters. Floodtide scans your Applications folders on first launch and works out what is installed and what is outdated by itself, usually in under ten seconds. Since 1.4.4, File, Import from MacUpdater… also reads MacUpdater’s ignore list and exported app list, shows which of those apps Floodtide covers, and can skip the apps MacUpdater ignored.

Check whether your apps are covered →

Other comparisons

Sources