The other day, I installed the next macOS Ventura update — version 13.2. And the question arose before me, should I use the built-in shell, or should I update it?

A quick web search yielded no answers, so I decided to compare the versions.

zsh --version

zsh 5.8.1 (×86_64-apple-darwin22.0) — the typical version supplied by Apple.

Checking which version is in Homebrew

brew info zsh

Azsh default version in Ventura 13.2 zsh: stable 5.9 (bottled), HEAD — version that can be obtained via Homebrew.

At first glance, we can see that Homebrew has a newer version. However, this is what catches my eye — ×86_64, which suggests that this is a version for Intel, not for Apple Silicon. 😕

The decision is to update!

brew install zsh

Restart shell

source ~/.zshrc

and check the version of the installed shell

zsh --version

Azsh updated via brew

Let’s compare

zsh 5.8.1 (×86_64-apple-darwin22.0) — Intel (Ventura 13.2)
zsh 5.9 (arm-apple-darwin22.1.0) — Apple Silicon (Homebrew)

The updated version of zsh 5.9 is the version specifically for Apple Silicon 🚀, it is strange that the version of macOS created for M1/M2 contains an assembly for Intel.

If you have an M1/M2 Apple Silicon — I advise you to install the version of zsh compiled specifically for your processor.