# Install fastme with Homebrew

Accurate and fast distance-based phylogeny inference program. Version 2.1.6.3 via Homebrew; verified from local package data.

## Install

```sh
sudo av install brew:fastme
```

Additional install commands:

### macOS

- Homebrew (100%):

```sh
brew install fastme
```

  Evidence: local Homebrew formula metadata

## Package facts

- **Package key:** brew:fastme
- **Package manager:** Homebrew
- **Version:** 2.1.6.3
- **Source summary:** Accurate and fast distance-based phylogeny inference program
- **Homepage:** <http://www.atgc-montpellier.fr/fastme/>
- **Generated:** 2026-08-03T19:37:03+00:00

## Executables

- fastme (alias)

## Install behavior

- Bottle: not available

## Freshness

- Page generated: 2026-08-03
- Package-manager version: 2.1.6.3
## Project history and usage

FastME is a distance-based phylogeny inference program from the ATGC/LIRMM ecosystem. It focuses on balanced minimum evolution methods and exposes both command-line and web-application use.

### Project history

FastME traces back to the 2002 minimum-evolution phylogeny reconstruction work by Desper and Gascuel. The ATGC project page describes the original FastME as using nearest-neighbor interchange and the 2.0 line as adding subtree pruning and regrafting while remaining fast enough to compare with neighbor joining.

The 2015 FastME 2.0 publication and ATGC page frame the modern package as a comprehensive distance-method toolkit, adding distance estimation for DNA and protein data, bootstrapping, and parallel computations.

### Adoption history

FastME is a specialist phylogenetics tool rather than a broad developer utility. Its adoption surface is the ATGC web service, Linux and Mac command-line binaries, Galaxy integration references, and scientific package-manager distribution.

### How it is used

Users run FastME to infer phylogenetic trees from sequence-derived distances when they want a fast distance method with topology-improvement steps beyond plain neighbor joining. The project does not document a persistent user configuration or credentials file.

### Why package nerds care

For package maintainers, FastME is the classic scientific CLI shape: an academic algorithm with a paper trail, an official web runner, and a small native command-line binary that needs to stay reproducible across Unix-like systems.

### Timeline

- 2002: Minimum-evolution algorithms underlying FastME are published.
- 2015: FastME 2.0 paper describes the expanded NNI and SPR implementation.
- 2016: ATGC metadata lists the FastME software page as published.
- 2017: The official LIRMM GitLab project is created.

### Related projects

- FastME is related to neighbor joining and other distance-based phylogeny tools; its own documentation emphasizes balanced minimum evolution, NNI, and SPR.

### Sources

- <http://www.atgc-montpellier.fr/fastme/>
- <https://gite.lirmm.fr/atgc/FastME>
- <https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msv150>
- <https://doi.org/10.1089/106652702761034136>


## Security Notes

narrow executable package without higher-risk signals.

- **Geiger risk:** green / low
- narrow executable package without higher-risk signals


## Combined YAML source

View the package source record on GitHub. [combined/fastme.yml](https://github.com/mxcl/pkgdb/blob/main/combined/fastme.yml)


## Sources

- pkg.so package database
- Geiger risk classifier
- curated package history
- pkgdb category and tag curation
- cross-ecosystem install command graph