u/1juu

Hey everyone,

I'm at a small shop (~15 Apple Silicon Macs) and I've basically "fallen into" being the SysAdmin. We moved from Miradore to FleetDM earlier this year, and I'm now tasked with actually getting software management working.

The Problem:

My boss (and the fact that we're a cybersec company) has a strict "no closed-source SaaS" rule for our binary pipeline-so tools like Workbrew are out. He wants something automated where we don't have to manually package every single binary ourselves.

I tried using Homebrew through scripts (since that's what we did in Miradore), but it's been super flaky and unreliable. I also tried using the out-of-the-box binaries Fleet offers in their software library, but they've been really hit or miss. For example, things like Brave just fail with "Download Failed" and zero helpful logs, while other apps work fine. It's hard to trust it for a fleet-wide rollout.

The Confusion:

I keep seeing Installomator and AutoPkg mentioned, but I'm honestly just confused at this point.

- Are those the only "real" ways to do this without a paid SaaS?

- Am I missing some obvious "middle ground" for a company of 15 people?

- If I go the Installomator/AutoPkg route, what does that actually look like in a Fleet workflow?

I'm basically looking for the "standard" way people handle this when they can't use a black-box service. Is there a better way to approach this, or do I just need to suck it up and learn AutoPkg/Installomator and if so which one?