Open Source PowerShell Package Managers

Vcpkg helps you manage C and C++ libraries on Windows, Linux and MacOS. This tool and ecosystem are constantly evolving, and we always appreciate contributions! After you've gotten vcpkg installed and working, you may wish to add tab completion to your shell. With CMake, you will still need to find_package and the like to use the libraries. Check out the CMake section for more information, including on using CMake with an IDE. In classic mode, vcpkg produces an "installed" tree, whose contents are changed by explicit calls to vcpkg install or vcpkg remove. The installed tree is intended for consumption by any number of projects: for example, installing a bunch of libraries and then using those libraries from Visual Studio, without additional configuration. Because the installed tree is not associated with an individual project, it's similar to tools like brew or apt, except that the installed tree is vcpkg-installation-local, rather than global to a system or user.

The winget-pkgs repository is the community-maintained manifest collection for the Windows Package Manager (winget), serving as the default, upstream source of installable application manifests used by the winget client. It contains tens of thousands of manifest files (organized under a manifests/ folder) plus schema, validation, CI pipelines, and tooling to build, test, and publish packages so users can install software with a single command. The repo enforces contribution processes (including a Contributor License Agreement flow for many contributors), automated validation checks, and publishing pipelines so manifests meet format, checksum, and licensing expectations before becoming available to users. Maintainers document manifest authoring, testing, and request workflows, and the repository requires installers to be packaged as supported installer formats (MSIX, MSI, APPX, or executable installers), with script-based installers and fonts noted as unsupported.

Scoop’s Main bucket is the primary, default repository (“bucket”) of application manifests for the Scoop package manager on Windows. It holds a curated set of portable or minimally invasive applications that adhere to Scoop’s standards (i.e. apps that don’t heavily depend on installer frameworks or registry tweaks). When a user installs Scoop, the Main bucket is automatically configured, so users can immediately install common command-line tools and utilities without adding extra buckets. The manifests in Main are JSON files that describe how to download, install, uninstall, and manage versions of apps (including dependencies, checksums, etc.). Because it’s the default bucket, maintainers apply stricter validation and review policies to keep Main reliable and safe compared to more experimental or niche buckets. Community contributions are encouraged via pull requests, and the bucket typically evolves with updates, new apps, and deprecations to reflect what users commonly need.

Scoop «Extras» is the community-maintained bucket of additional manifests for Scoop, the popular Windows command-line installer; it contains packages and app manifests that don’t fit the stricter criteria of the main Scoop bucket. The repository is organized as a large collection of individual manifest files, helper scripts, and tooling to validate and publish new manifests, and it’s intended so users can extend Scoop with many community-contributed applications. Installation is straightforward for Scoop users: add the bucket with scoop bucket add extras and then install any manifest with scoop install <manifest>, making it quick to access a wide range of Windows command-line and GUI tools. The Extras bucket is actively maintained by a large contributor community, carries thousands of commits and many contributors, and uses an Unlicense license so manifests are easy to reuse.