I haven't looked at Homebrew since that got started. The philosophical difference at that time was using macports and having a consistent and managed */local/ collection of tools with self contained dependencies vs. adding new tools with dependencies tied to the current Mac OS release.

I still use MacPorts for that reason and it is easy enough to create a local portfile for whatever isn't in Macports.

I find this to be the easy way to manage networked development computers.