NSIS (Nullsoft Scriptable Install System) is a professional open source system to create Windows installers. It is designed to be as small and flexible as possible and is therefore very suitable for internet distribution.




The best open source alternative to InstallShield is NSIS. If that doesn't suit you, our users have ranked more than 50 alternatives to InstallShield and many of them is open source so hopefully you can find a suitable replacement. Other interesting open source alternatives to InstallShield are WiX, DCP Setup Maker, IzPack and Wix#.
NSIS (Nullsoft Scriptable Install System) is a professional open source system to create Windows installers. It is designed to be as small and flexible as possible and is therefore very suitable for internet distribution.




The Windows Installer XML (WiX) is a toolset that builds Windows installation packages from XML source code. The toolset supports a command line environment that developers may integrate into their build processes to build MSI and MSM setup packages.

Powerful simple-to-use application to generate stable and multi-platform installers. Its intuitive user interface and exceptional ease of use makes it very easy to build complex desktop or web installers with large amounts of files.





Velopack is an installation and auto-update framework for cross-platform desktop applications. It's opinionated, extremely easy to use with zero config needed. With just one command you can be up and running with an installable application, and it's lightning fast for...

The packaging formats used by different distributions of Linux can be a pain point for software developers wishing to release their projects in an easily consumable way. Debian and Ubuntu rely on .deb packages, while Fedora and RedHat both use .rpm style packaging systems.
SFX Tool is a graphical user interface and script generator for the Nullsoft Scriptable Install System. It allows the user to create simple setup files in minutes without writing a line of code. Advanced users may also edit the install script before it is compiled.

Debreate is a utility to aid in creating installable Debian (.deb) packages. The goal behind the project is to make developing for Debian based Linux distributions more appealing, with an easy to use interface for packaging applications, artwork, media, themes, etc.




Squirrel is both a set of tools and a library, to completely manage both installation and updating your Desktop Windows application, written in either C# or any other language (i.e., Squirrel can manage native C++ applications).
makeself.sh is a small shell script that generates a self-extractable tar.gz archive from a directory. The resulting file appears as a shell script (many of those have a .run suffix), and can be launched as is.
HM NIS Edit is the best Editor/IDE for NSIS . It's useful for experts and beginners in the creation of Setup programs with the NSIS. Its Script Wizard will help you to create standard Setup programs with only few clicks, also its...

