Bengal Download Manager: The Free IDM Alternative for Ubuntu

exorcist12 — Thu, 08 Oct 2026 15:11:06 +0000

Bengal Download Manager is a free and open-source download manager for Linux. It is an alternative to IDM (Internet Download Manager) on Windows, and as the name suggests, it is made for fast, everyday downloading on Ubuntu and other Linux systems.

It is built with PyQt6 and Aria2. It splits files into multiple parts and downloads them at the same time, so you get full speed from your connection. It can pause and resume downloads, recover from a broken connection, and catch download links directly from the browser.

Bengal Download Manager Features

Among the most notable features are:

Resume downloads

Bengal will resume the unfinished download from where it stopped. If the Wi-Fi drops, the laptop shuts down, or the connection breaks, you do not start again. It retries and continues from the same place.

Multi-threaded downloads

Bengal downloads files in 8-16 split parts at the same time. This is the same idea IDM uses. For normal servers it makes a clear difference, especially with big ISO files, videos and zip archives.

Works with all browsers

Bengal works with Firefox, Chrome, Brave and Edge through a small extension. Once you install the app and the add-on, it catches the download link when you click it and shows this dialog:

You can change the folder, rename the file, set the number of connections, and send it to a queue. The extension settings live in the browser popup:

Smart queues, scheduler and speed limiter

Bengal can download one file at a time from a queue, start a queue at a set time, or shut down when it is done. It also has a speed limiter, so you can keep browsing or watching videos while a big file downloads in the background.

Proxy support and file organization

Bengal supports proxy servers with authentication, which is useful for office and university networks. It also sorts files by type — Documents, Videos, Music, Compressed, Programs — so the Downloads folder does not get messy.

It has a clean light and dark theme that follows your Ubuntu desktop.

How to install Bengal Download Manager on Ubuntu 24.04?

The app is not in the Ubuntu repositories, but you have three easy ways to install it. Version 0.2.73 supports x86_64 and ARM64.

1. Snap Store (easiest, with auto-updates):

sudo snap install bengal-download-manager

2. Flatpak:

flatpak install --user https://zihad.com.bd/bengal-download-manager/bengal-download-manager.flatpakref

3. AppImage (no install):

wget https://github.com/tazihad/bengal-download-manager/releases/download/v0.2.73/bengal-download-manager-0.2.73-x86_64.AppImage
chmod +x bengal-download-manager-*-x86_64.AppImage
./bengal-download-manager-*-x86_64.AppImage

You can find all packages on the Latest Release page.

After that, install the browser part:

Install Firefox add-on from here: Bengal DM Integration Module
For Chrome / Brave / Edge, load the extension zip from the Release page until the Chrome Web Store version is out.
Open Bengal Download Manager once, then click a download link in the browser. It will ask you where to save it.

At the end of the installation we will only have to open the program, it will automatically start the Aria2 background service and listen for links from the browser.

If you came from Windows and you miss IDM, give Bengal a try. It is free, open-source, and does the basics right: full speed, pause/resume, and browser integration.

DEV Community: exorcist12