Collect them all! Install Winget, Chocolatey and Scoop. (I just put the "vs." in there as clickbait.) They make installing and managing software on Windows so much easier. They are different tools, though, and I suggest that their usage depends on the scenario.
In the Linux world, there are apt, yum, dnf, pacman, and many others. In Mac and Linux, there is brew. For Windows, there are three: winget, choco and scoop. They manage software from the PowerShell command-line.
Winget: the command-line version of the Microsoft Store
Winget serves similar functions as Scoop or Chocolatey, but the catalog of packages is a bit different. It has a winget-specific community repository as do Scoop and Chocolatey. But it also has the Microsoft Store. Any free and "E" for everyone package should be installable via a simple winget install packagename (in some cases, you may want to be more specific with the package id. This can be obtained using winget search.
Chocolatey: conventional install locations, as Admin
Chocolatey can install from a community repository with thousands of packages. In general, installing one of these packages, such as Google Chrome, will require elevated Admin privileges, and will install it where you would expect (likely C:\Program Files\ or C:\Program Files (x86)\). The applications will have shortcuts in your start menu, and possibly on your desktop.
Chocolatey's repository is huge and mature. If winget is unable to install your app, try to choco install it -- you might be pleasantly surprised.
Scoop: non-Admin by default, installs in user directory
Scoop is designed for developers who have an affinity for Unix. By default, it installs packages to ~/scoop/ and this is both a strength and a confusion point. Apps will not by default show in the start menu, and if plugins or addons expect to find the installation in a certain directory (looking at you, OBS Studio!), there will be some inconvenience and tedious setup.
If you do not have Admin access to your system (for instance, this is a shared server with Remote Desktop access), then Scoop is the right choice.
Scoop also seems natural for installing command-line tools that you might miss from Unix-like systems, such as Linux or Mac. While some of these tools may be available through Chocolatey or even winget, the Scoop ecosystem is designed with such tools in mind.
The Scoop wiki has a nice write-up discussing Scoop and Chocolatey and Winget.
Installation of each tool
Prerequisite for Scoop and Chocolatey: Enable execution of PowerShell scripts
For both Scoop and Chocolatey, you will need to set the PowerShell Execution Policy to something more permissive than "Restricted." Here is my suggestion: be strict with the scope of LocalMachine, and only slightly more permissive with the CurrentUser scope. So, first launch PowerShell as Admin (I use ⊞-x then select "Windows PowerShell (Admin)") and run
Set-ExecutionPolicy AllSigned
Set-ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -scope CurrentUser
The first line means that all scripts and configuration files on this computer must be signed by a trusted publisher, even if you write them yourself. This is pretty strict.
The second line means that all scripts and configuration files downloaded from the Internet must be signed by a trusted publisher, but scripts you write yourself will work, for the current user. This policy will "win" when you are logged in.
Winget installation
The easiest way to install Winget is through the Microsoft Store, installing the App Installer package.
The Winget repo also has instructions for manually updating Winget.
Chocolatey installation
In an Admin-level PowerShell window, the following should work, provided you have set the ExecutionPolicy as above:
iwr -useb chocolatey.org/install.ps1 | iex
See the detailed installation docs if you have issues with the above.
Scoop installation
In any PowerShell window, no Admin necessary, the following will install Scoop, provided you have set the ExecutionPolicy as detailed at the beginning of the article:
iwr -useb get.scoop.sh | iex
See the detailed installation docs for more info.
Scoop buckets
I often install the extras bucket immediately:
scoop bucket add extras
A bucket is a set of apps that can be searched and installed. To see all the known community buckets:
scoop bucket known
Then add the ones you like!
Usage of the various tools
Chocolatey search
choco search ditto
Chocolatey install package
choco install ditto
Chocolatey upgrade all currently installed packages
choco upgrade all
Chocolatey help
choco -help
Scoop search
scoop search sudo
Scoop install package
scoop install sudo
Scoop upgrade all currently installed packages
scoop update *
Scoop help
scoop help
Winget search
winget search filezilla
Winget install package
winget install filezilla
Winget upgrade all currently installed packages
winget upgrade --all
Winget help
winget -?
Enjoy and experiment!
Top comments (12)
Scoop let's you define package repositories (buckets) in a simple JSON format, whereas Chocolatey requires a NuGet v2 feed. Chocolatey imposes a hard request limit to their public repositories, so you can't use it for production without hosting your own repository. If you read this comment and you are looking for a tool to provision software to Windows-machines in a Linux-style manner, save yourself some time and choose scoop.
That is a significant point about production use of Chocolatey. Thank you for mentioning this, as I did not in the article. This is a positive point for Scoop.
There are, of course, various editions of Chocolatey that can help with this, if you have some money to spend.
If you're viewing this in 2023 and you're looking for the most linux-like experience, save yourself the hassle, go with Scoop.
I've been using both since this post and Choco is too much of a headache with limitations whereas scoop is a very simple linux-like experience.
Thanks for sharing your experience! I am only using Scoop now, as well.
Not a developer, more of a wannabe newb. But I did spot another alternative in Reddit discussion: appget.net/
Thanks for noting this! The plot thickens.
As you can see in the GitHub repo, AppGet is shutting down.
It's dead now github.com/appget/appget.packages/...
Chocolatey can cause difficulties for corporate companies. I did not have such a problem while using Scoop. Using and configuring Scoop is very simple.
I knew Scoop recently, and it is very useful. I haven't used Chocolatey, but scoop is very good for me. I can recommend it to everybody.
winget is a better tool. but some development tools such as sass is not available
scoop: 'upgrade' isn't a scoop command.scoop update -ainstead.Good catch. I type
scoop updatemultiple times a week; not sure how I missed that! Thank you.