Homebrew and mise-en-place are the only must have apps for me (both of which are not .app applications). Everything else is pretty well context-dependant and/or built in. For Homebrew - having used Nix, Macports, and pkgsrc, I found Homebrew easier than everything else. I would like to get into Nix, but there is too much mucking around for it to be worth it to me.

mise-en-place has such a unique feature set that I can’t compare it to anything else. I started using it as a replacement for pyenv and sdkman, and found it so helpful.

For me, the better-than-you-think built in apps are:

- Reminders - I haven’t gone all in on any other task management software, but I don’t bother because Reminders does everything I need

- Mail - it is fiddly and idiot proof to a fault, but provided you don’t have an exotic setup and can deal with only average search capabilities, it works well

- Calendar - it’s a calendar. Only thing I don’t particularly like is the date-picker interface for new events, and that’s mainly because I like my Sunday-Saturday format

- Terminal - it’s tidy and works well. Many swear by iTerm2; I find Terminal good

- Safari - does what it says on the tin and does it well, I like Safari. (Edit: I use Wipr2 for Adblock which is necessary)

- Passwords - having been a medium-long term user (2-5 years) at various times of both Keepass and Password Store, I ended up transitioning to Passwords because of its good integration with Safari and its sync in iCloud, which is good for family. However the app itself has improved over time as well and I call it good