Download
Benbow for your Mac
Version v0.1.0-beta.9, released 9 November 2026. Free and open source.
Requirements
| macOS | macOS 14 Sonoma or later |
|---|---|
| Mac | Apple Silicon or Intel |
| MySQL 8.4 | Apple Silicon only (Oracle has no Intel build of this series). PostgreSQL and Redis run on both. |
| PHP 5.6 to 7.4 | Apple Silicon and macOS 15 or later. PHP 8.0 to 8.5 run everywhere. |
| Admin password | Not needed for everyday use. Asked once only if you turn on .test, .local or ports 443 and 80. |
Install
Open the disk image and drag Benbow into Applications. On first launch Benbow asks macOS once to trust its local certificate authority, and that's it.
$ brew install --cask benbowdev/tap/benbow
The tap only downloads the app. Benbow itself never runs or changes Homebrew, and nothing it installs ends up there.
Check the download
Every release lists the SHA-256 checksum of each file. Compare it with yours:
$ shasum -a 256 ~/Downloads/Benbow.dmg
| File | Size | SHA-256 |
|---|---|---|
| Benbow-0.1.0-beta.9.dmg | 24.3 MB | 6f2363479b4c9eb334752898beeac75d5e9223fb5f4545f5f7f2a7f819d0ba74 |
The PHP, MySQL, Caddy and other components Benbow downloads later are checked too: each one against the SHA-256 in a manifest signed by the project, before it ever runs.
Updating and removing
Component updates (a new PHP patch, Caddy, Mailpit) show up as a small badge in the app and install when you click. benbow update rollback goes back. To remove Benbow completely, run benbow uninstall: it stops everything, takes the certificate authority and every password Benbow stored out of your keychain and deletes Benbow's folder. Your projects and their folders are never touched.