Open Source Java Package Managers

JavaPackager is a hybrid plugin for Maven and Gradle which provides an easy way to package Java applications in native Windows, MacOS or GNU/Linux executables, and generate installers for them. It was born while teaching to my students how to build and distribute their Java apps, and after seeing that a chain of several plugins was needed to achieve this task, I decided to develop a plugin to rule them all. Apply JavaPackager plugin in build.gradle using legacy mode (because at the moment it's only available in Maven Central repository). When you build your app, all configuration details are hardcoded into the executable and cannot be changed without recreating it or hacking with a resource editor. JavaPackager introduces a feature that allows passing of additional JVM options at runtime from an .l4j.ini file (like Launch4j does, but available for all platforms in the same way).

Capsule is a packaging and deployment tool for JVM applications. A capsule is a single executable JAR that contains everything your application needs to run either in the form of embedded files or as declarative metadata. It can contain your JAR artifacts, your dependencies and resources, native libraries, the require JRE version, the JVM flags required to run the application well, Java or native agents and more. In short, a capsule is a self-contained JAR that knows everything there is to know about how to run your application the way it's meant to run. One way of thinking about a capsule is as a fat JAR on steroids (that also allows native libraries and never interferes with your dependencies) and a declarative startup script rolled into one; another, is to see it is as the deploy-time counterpart to your build tool. Just as a build tool manages your build, Capsule manages the launching of your application.