- Packages are useful units of software in homebrew, and both end-user apps dependency libraries in apt (and weird stuff, like headers, or dependencies)

- Homebrew packages are installed for the user, apt is system-wide

- Homebrew packages are updated and maintained usually by people involved with the software they are shipping, apt packages are usually maintained by the distro

- As a result, Homebrew packages almost always work and are almost always up to date, apt ones are almost never (stuff like go, node etc.)

Apt is like a weird frankenstein monster of npm, the system update, and an app store, and all that with a global scope.