Chocolatey or Windows Package Manager is the better tool to download Windows software?

The following article will discuss Chocolatey and winget in detail, helping you decide which option is better for you!

What is Chocolatey?

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Chocolatey is the most popular open source package manager in the Microsoft Windows ecosystem. As a third-party software, it excels as a tool to automatically install the right software to a PC in a simple, fast and cost-effective way.

Software developers also often use Chocolatey to quickly download required dependencies without wasting time on complicated installation process with each third-party tool on a complex Windows environment. You can set up and use Chocolatey via the Windows command line or PowerShell.

What is Windows Package Manager (winget)?

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Microsoft gives users a package manager called Windows Package Manager or winget. Winget is an open source command line tool package manager introduced in 2020 with Windows 10. It gives Windows users access to a wide selection of installable applications.

Microsoft has ensured that Windows Package Manager is open source and accessible on GitHub, just like other popular package managers (Yarn, NPM, Chocolatey). Windows Package Manager was launched with Windows 10 as an alternative to Chocolatey - a powerful third-party open source package manager used by the Windows community.

Refer to TipsMake's detailed instructions on how to use winget in Windows.

Should I use Chocolatey or winget?

Chocolatey has been around for over a decade and is widely used by Windows users. Winget, on the other hand, was only released in 2020, so it doesn't have a wide customer base and isn't as familiar to Windows users as the competition.

Windows Package Manager is relatively new, but is an alternative to Chocolatey well worth considering.

1. Which option has the best features?

Chocolatey offers 3 main products - Chocolatey for Business, Pro Edition and Open Source.

Chocolatey for Business is aimed at businesses that want to integrate an automated package manager in their DevOps workflow and seamlessly manage multiple Windows environments. Business users can use Chocolatey to automate the lifecycle of their Windows software. These special commercial licenses are available to business users and offer many important features.

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The Open Source version of Chocolatey uses the largest registry of Windows packages and bundles all your deployment dependencies into a single compiled file. This is the preferred option for casual Windows users who want to automate application management.

If you're an individual user but want a more premium experience, you can switch to Chocolatey Pro Edition for additional features like reliability and anti-malware protection.

Regardless of the version of Chocolatey you have chosen, you can create new packages, use existing packages, and integrate Chocolatey with a variety of infrastructure tools.

In contrast, Winget is quite simple. You can create or upload new packages in the YAML manifest, download apps from the Windows repositories, and configure them as you see fit. In addition, winget is also available to independent developers and software vendors.

Like winget, the open source version of Chocolatey allows you to download applications from the registry, upgrade the applications to the latest versions, and configure them via the command line. Chocolatey offers more features to cater to its diverse customer base, while winget focuses on simplifying software installation for casual users.

2. Which is more expensive?

As mentioned earlier, Windows Package Manager is a free and open source tool on Windows 10 and 11.

The Open Source version of Chocolatey is also free, but Chocolatey for Business (C4B) and Chocolatey Pro are paid. Chocolatey does not allow organizations to use Chocolatey Pro, so businesses will have to use the open source version or purchase C4B.

3. Which has more software options?

Chocolatey hosts the largest Windows software registry with over 9,500 packages maintained by the community through the Chocolatey Community Package Repository. Google Chrome, Adobe Reader, Notepad++ and Microsoft Teams are all easily accessible via Chocolatey.

Microsoft's Windows Package Manager Community Repository doesn't contain as many packages as Chocolatey's, but it does support widely used software like 7-Zip, Google Chrome, and others.

4. Which is easier to use?

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In terms of usability, it is not easy to distinguish between winget and Chocolatey. Windows Package Manager is easily installed through the Microsoft Store (pre-installed on some versions of Windows 11). To get started, you can fire up the terminal and enter the relevant winget command.

With Chocolatey, you have to download it through PowerShell by changing some execution policies. If you want to avoid using the command line interface when using Chocolatey, you can benefit from the Chocolatey GUI. It is an easy to use application that allows you to view the available Chocolatey packages and install them directly through the GUI.

5. Which has better community support?

Since Chocolatey has been around for over a decade, it has a larger community. The official docs at Chocolatey also make it easier to get started with the package manager.

In contrast, the Windows Package Manager community is somewhat limited and Microsoft's documentation is not easy to understand for beginners.

Conclude

Chocolatey is very powerful and serves a wide range of Windows customers, while winget is better for casual users who want to simplify the installation of applications on Windows. Chocolatey has better community support, a larger amount of software, and some pretty cool features that can take software development to the next level.

If you are a business user or someone who wants an improved package manager for Windows, you should choose the business or premium version of Chocolatey. For the average user, the open source version of Chocolatey is good enough to install apps on Windows PCs easily.

David Pac

Update 02 March 2023