vcftools ☆

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Description:
Tools for working with VCF files

Type: Formula | Tracked Since: Dec 28, 2025

Links: Homepage | formulae.brew.sh

Category: Developer tools

Tags: bioinformatics genomics vcf genetics data-analysis

Install: brew install vcftools

About:
VCFtools is a comprehensive suite of utilities for working with Variant Call Format (VCF) files, the standard for storing genetic sequence variations. It provides a robust command-line interface for filtering, summarizing, and converting VCF data, making it essential for processing high-throughput sequencing data. The toolset supports both Perl and C++ implementations, offering flexibility for various bioinformatics workflows.

Key Features:

Efficiently filter and subset VCF files based on variant properties
Generate detailed statistics and reports on variant data
Convert between VCF and other genetic data formats
Perform basic population genetics analyses

Use Cases:

Quality control filtering of genomic variants from sequencing pipelines
Extracting specific variant subsets for candidate gene analysis
Generating summary statistics for population genetics studies

Alternatives:

bcftools – Part of the SAMtools suite, often faster for simple operations but VCFtools offers a wider range of specialized statistical functions.
SnpEff – Focuses on variant annotation rather than filtering and statistics, often used in conjunction with VCFtools.

Version History

Detected	Version	Rev	Change	Commit
Sep 11, 2024 11:53pm		0	VERSION_BUMP	33d931ae
Sep 21, 2023 2:31am		0	VERSION_BUMP	a3d17721