List of software package management systems


This is a list of notable software package manager systems, categorized first by package format and then by operating system family.

Binary packages

The following package manager systems distribute software in binary package form; i.e., all executables are compiled and ready to install and use.

Unix-like

Linux

Linux (discontinued)

  • OpenPKG: Cross-platform package management system based on RPM Package Manager;
  • PISI: Stands for "Packages Installed Successfully as Intended"; used by Pisi Linux. Pardus used to use Pisi, but migrated to APT in 2013.
  • Red Hat's up2date, an out-of-date/discontinued predecessor to YUM.

Android

BSD

  • FreeBSD pkg – FreeBSD binary packages are built on top of source based FreeBSD Ports and managed with the pkg tool;
  • OpenBSD ports: The infrastructure behind the binary packages on OpenBSD;
  • pkgsrc: A cross-platform package manager, with regular binary packages provided for NetBSD, Linux and macOS by multiple vendors;
  • dpkg: Used as part of Debian GNU/kFreeBSD;
  • OpenPKG: Cross-platform package management system based on rpm;
  • PC-BSD: Up to and including version 8.2 uses files with the .pbi filename extension which, when double-clicked, bring up an installation wizard program. Each PBI is self-contained and uses de-duplicated private dependencies to avoid version conflicts. An autobuild system tracks the FreeBSD ports collection and generates new PBIs daily. PC-BSD also uses the FreeBSD pkg binary package system; new packages are built approximately every two weeks from both a stable and rolling release branch of the FreeBSD ports tree.

macOS (OS X)

Solaris, illumos

iOS

Windows

Superseded:

z/OS

BSD

Linux

  • ABS is used by Arch Linux to automate binary packages building from source or even other binary archives, with automatic download and dependency checking;
  • apt-build is used by distributions which use deb packages, allowing automatic compiling and installation of software in a deb source repository;
  • Sorcery is Sourcemage GNU/Linux's bash based package management program that automatically downloads software from their original site and compiles and installs it on the local machine;

macOS (OS X)

  • Fink, for OS X, derives partially from dpkg/apt and partially from ports;
  • MacPorts, formerly called DarwinPorts, originated from the OpenDarwin project;
  • Homebrew, with close Git integration;
  • pkgsrc can be used to install software directly from source-code, or to use the binary packages provided by several independent vendors.

Hybrid systems

  • Nix: Package manager that manages software in a purely functional programming way, with multi-user support, atomic upgrades, and rollbacks. Allows installing multiple versions or variants of software at the same time. Supports macOS and cross-Linux distributions;
  • Portage and emerge are used by Gentoo Linux, Funtoo Linux, and Sabayon Linux. It is inspired by the BSD ports collection and uses text based ebuilds to automatically download, customize, build, and update packages from source code. It has automatic dependency checking and allows installing multiple versions of a software package in different slots on the same system. Has use flags to allow fully customizing a software build to suit the needs of a platform in an automated way. While source code distributing and customizing is the preferred method, some larger packages that would take many hours to compile on a typical desktop computer are also offered as pre-compiled binaries to ease installing;
  • Upkg: Package manager and build system based on Mono and XML specifications. Used by paldo and formerly by ExTiX Linux;
  • MacPorts for macOS;
  • NetBSD's pkgsrc works on several Unix-like operating systems, with regular binary packages for macOS and Linux provided by multiple independent vendors;
  • Collective Knowledge is a cross-platform package and workflow framework with JSON API that can download binary packages or build them from sources for Linux, Windows, macOS, and Android platforms.

Meta package managers

The following unify package management for several or all Linux and sometimes Unix variants. These, too, are based on the concept of a recipe file.
  • AppImage aims to provide an easy way to get software packages for most major distributions without the dependency problems so common in many other package formats.
  • Autopackage uses .package files.
  • PackageKit is a set of utilities and libraries for creating applications that can manage packages across multiple package managers using back-ends to call the correct program.

Game package managers

Package management systems geared toward developing and distributing video games.

Proprietary software systems

A wide variety of package management systems are in common use today by proprietary software operating systems, handling the installation of both proprietary and free packages.

Application-level package managers

Meta server application-level package manager