Best Package Managers in 2026
Updated
93 package managers ranked on what their makers publish — plans and prices, free tiers, platforms and the facts on their own pages.
93ranked
1free plans on this page
4 Oct 2026last checked
Package Managers, ranked on how quickly a newcomer can get going. 1 of the 25 on this page can be tried for free.
- 51 Mamba
- Free to practise on: not on record
- Free trial: not on record
- Well documented: not on record
- Runs where you work: yes
- 52 Gentoo Portage
- Free to practise on: not on record
- Free trial: not on record
- Well documented: not on record
- Runs where you work: not on record
- 53 pkgsrc
- Free to practise on: not on record
- Free trial: not on record
- Well documented: not on record
- Runs where you work: not on record
- 54 Zypper
- Free to practise on: not on record
- Free trial: not on record
- Well documented: yes
- Runs where you work: not on record
- 55 LuaRocks
- Free to practise on: not on record
- Free trial: not on record
- Well documented: not on record
- Runs where you work: yes
- 56 Racket Package Manager
- Free to practise on: not on record
- Free trial: not on record
- Well documented: not on record
- Runs where you work: yes
- 57 Scoop
- Free to practise on: not on record
- Free trial: not on record
- Well documented: not on record
- Runs where you work: not on record
- 58 Apache Ivy
- Free to practise on: not on record
- Free trial: not on record
- Well documented: not on record
- Runs where you work: not on record
- 59 MSYS2
- Free to practise on: not on record
- Free trial: not on record
- Well documented: not on record
- Runs where you work: not on record
- 60 tdnf
- Free to practise on: not on record
- Free trial: not on record
- Well documented: yes
- Runs where you work: not on record
- 61 PEAR
- Free to practise on: not on record
- Free trial: not on record
- Well documented: yes
- Runs where you work: yes
- 62 Flatpak BuilderFree plan
- Free to practise on: yes
- Free trial: not on record
- Well documented: yes
- Runs where you work: not on record
- 63 Pamac
- Free to practise on: not on record
- Free trial: not on record
- Well documented: not on record
- Runs where you work: not on record
- 64 Alpine apk-tools
- Free to practise on: not on record
- Free trial: not on record
- Well documented: not on record
- Runs where you work: not on record
- 65 XBPS
- Free to practise on: not on record
- Free trial: not on record
- Well documented: not on record
- Runs where you work: not on record
- 66 Quicklisp
- Free to practise on: not on record
- Free trial: not on record
- Well documented: not on record
- Runs where you work: yes
- 67 Haxelib
- Free to practise on: not on record
- Free trial: not on record
- Well documented: yes
- Runs where you work: yes
- 68 MacPorts
- Free to practise on: not on record
- Free trial: not on record
- Well documented: not on record
- Runs where you work: not on record
- 69 CLPM
- Free to practise on: not on record
- Free trial: not on record
- Well documented: not on record
- Runs where you work: yes
- 70 Nala
- Free to practise on: not on record
- Free trial: not on record
- Well documented: not on record
- Runs where you work: not on record
- 71 pkg_add
- Free to practise on: not on record
- Free trial: not on record
- Well documented: not on record
- Runs where you work: not on record
- 72 FreeBSD pkg
- Free to practise on: not on record
- Free trial: not on record
- Well documented: not on record
- Runs where you work: not on record
- 73 Synaptic
- Free to practise on: not on record
- Free trial: not on record
- Well documented: not on record
- Runs where you work: not on record
- 74 Npackd
- Free to practise on: not on record
- Free trial: not on record
- Well documented: not on record
- Runs where you work: not on record
- 75 Shards
- Free to practise on: not on record
- Free trial: not on record
- Well documented: not on record
- Runs where you work: yes
Compare all 25 in a table
| # | Platform | Score | Free plan | From | Free plan | Paid from | Package formats | Supported platforms |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 51 | Mamba | 6.4 | No | — | — | — | — | — |
| 52 | Gentoo Portage | 6.4 | No | — | Yes | — | ebuild, binary packages | Linux |
| 53 | pkgsrc | 6.4 | No | — | Yes | — | source packages; binary packages | NetBSD, Solaris, SmartOS, illumos, Linux, macOS (Darwin), FreeBSD, OpenBSD, DragonFlyBSD, MINIX 3, SCO OpenServer/UnixWare, HP-UX |
| 54 | Zypper | 6.4 | No | — | Yes | — | RPM packages and source RPM packages | Linux, including openSUSE and SUSE Enterprise Linux |
| 55 | LuaRocks | 6.4 | No | — | Yes | — | .rock, .rockspec | Linux, macOS, Windows, Unix, FreeBSD, Cygwin |
| 56 | Racket Package Manager | 6.4 | No | — | Yes | — | ZIP, TAR, TGZ, TAR.GZ, PLT archives; directories; Git and GitHub repositories | Windows, macOS, Linux |
| 57 | Scoop | 6.3 | No | — | Yes | — | ZIP, 7z, TAR, GZ, LZMA, LZH archives; installer files; single-file apps; PowerShell scripts | Windows 10 and newer; Windows Server 2016 and newer; Windows 7/8 and Server 2008/2012 with PowerShell 5.1 |
| 58 | Apache Ivy | 6.2 | No | — | Yes | — | Ivy files, Maven POMs, OSGi bundles | Java/JRE |
| 59 | MSYS2 | 6.2 | No | — | — | — | tar.zst, tar.xz | Windows 10 1809+ x86_64; Windows 10 ARM64 |
| 60 | tdnf | 6.2 | No | — | Yes | — | RPM | Linux |
| 61 | PEAR | 6.2 | No | — | — | — | phar, tar, tgz, zip | Windows, Unix/Linux/BSD, macOS |
| 62 | Flatpak Builder | 6.2 | Free plan | Free | — | — | — | — |
| 63 | Pamac | 6.1 | No | — | Yes | — | ALPM, AUR, Appstream, Flatpak, Snap | Linux, especially Manjaro Linux |
| 64 | Alpine apk-tools | 6.1 | No | — | Yes | — | — | Linux |
| 65 | XBPS | 6.1 | No | — | Yes | — | XBPS binary packages | Linux |
| 66 | Quicklisp | 6.1 | No | — | — | — | Common Lisp systems/libraries and source archives | Linux, Mac OS X, Windows |
| 67 | Haxelib | 6.1 | No | — | Yes | — | ZIP archives containing Haxe source and haxelib.json manifests | Windows, macOS, Linux |
| 68 | MacPorts | 6.0 | No | — | Yes | — | tbz2, tar, tbz, tgz, tlz, txz, xar, zip, cpgz, cpio | macOS |
| 69 | CLPM | 6.0 | No | — | — | — | Quicklisp, CLPI, ASDF | macOS, Linux, Windows; Common Lisp implementations including SBCL and CCL |
| 70 | Nala | 5.9 | No | — | — | — | .deb | Debian, Ubuntu, and derivatives |
| 71 | pkg_add | 5.9 | No | — | Yes | — | TGZ, gzip-compressed ustar archives with packing lists | OpenBSD alpha, amd64, arm64, armv7, hppa, i386, landisk, luna88k, macppc, octeon, powerpc64, riscv64, sparc64 |
| 72 | FreeBSD pkg | 5.9 | No | — | Yes | — | tar archive (.pkg), gzip, bzip2, zstd, xz | FreeBSD |
| 73 | Synaptic | 5.9 | No | — | Yes | — | Debian packages (.deb) | Linux (Debian) |
| 74 | Npackd | 5.9 | No | — | Yes | — | ZIP, MSI, EXE | Windows, ReactOS, Linux/Wine |
| 75 | Shards | 5.9 | No | — | Yes | — | Crystal shards defined with shard.yml | Linux, macOS, Windows |
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