MacTex vs MacPorts

[Dan Ports]

MacTeX and MacPorts are, for the most part, going to install the same
version of the same TeX Live software, so it largely comes down to
which package manager you'd like to use.

The major differences are:
 - MacTeX includes the entire distribution (which makes it pretty
   large). The texlive metaport, by default, installs the most commonly
   used packages. The others can be installed from separate ports, or
   by installing texlive +full

 - MacTeX includes its own package manager that can install pre-release
   versions. Our texlive ports install the latest release version, and
   mostly only get bug-fix updates between releases.

 - if you install via MacPorts, MacPorts can keep track of your
   installation. Besides meaning you can update your TeX installation
   the same way you update your other ports, it also means that it can
   be used to satisfy dependencies for other ports. It can also install
   additional texlive packages as needed for dependencies.

In years past, our texlive ports were sometimes significantly out of
date. That's not really an issue nowadays; TeX Live 2011 was available
in ports a week or so after its release.

Dan

-- 
Dan R. K. Ports              MIT CSAIL                http://drkp.net/