Chocolatey isn’t really made for the DIYer setting up their computer for a one-off install - for that I always recommend Ninite. Chocolatey is useful for enterprises and advanced DIYers though.
Ninite has like 20 programs to choose from, whereas Chocolatey has official and community repositories which are enabled by default and contain (as of writing this) 9872 programs. You don’t need to be a master hacker to use chocolatey. It’s literally one powershell command to install it, and then:
> choco install libreoffice
And to update existing programs (something which ninite can’t do)
> choco update
I agree that Ninite might be useful for your 64yr old grandma who only uses Google Chrome and gets the spooks when she sees the command-line, but chocolatey is the go-to tool if you’ve got any needs more advanced than that.
They do offer a special “business plan”, which has special features for IT departments which they could find very handy due to their special needs when handling thousands of software updates at a time. But you as an individual probably have no need for those paid features, so you can use it for free :)
FYI: Ninite has largely been superseded by Chocolatey
Chocolatey isn’t really made for the DIYer setting up their computer for a one-off install - for that I always recommend Ninite. Chocolatey is useful for enterprises and advanced DIYers though.
idk, it’s just one line to install every program you need and has a LOT more selection.
Ninite has like 20 programs to choose from, whereas Chocolatey has official and community repositories which are enabled by default and contain (as of writing this) 9872 programs. You don’t need to be a master hacker to use chocolatey. It’s literally one powershell command to install it, and then:
> choco install libreofficeAnd to update existing programs (something which ninite can’t do)
> choco updateI agree that Ninite might be useful for your 64yr old grandma who only uses Google Chrome and gets the spooks when she sees the command-line, but chocolatey is the go-to tool if you’ve got any needs more advanced than that.
Another FYI:
wingetis usable if you wish to use a native solution. It has its shortcomings over choco, but usable.MS learn page
Winget is the best thing added to the windows ecosystem in a long time. I just wish it worked out of the box on Server :(
Though isnt chocolatey a paid service? Ninite is free…
Nope, you can use chocolatey completely for free, even if you’re an enterprise! In fact, the choco CLI is FOSS.
They do offer a special “business plan”, which has special features for IT departments which they could find very handy due to their special needs when handling thousands of software updates at a time. But you as an individual probably have no need for those paid features, so you can use it for free :)
I’ve used it for free for years