I knew that Microsoft used that on Windows but had no idea it was multi-platform: https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg/releases/tag/2024.10.21 (MIT, like a lot of their stuff)
Microsoft is such an odd duck, sometimes, but I'm glad to take advantage of their "good years" while it lasts
In Weird Lexical Syntaxmicrosoft
vcpkg
CMake2016–2024
microsoft / vcpkg
vcpkg
C++ Library Manager for Windows, Linux, and MacOS
28Distinct people
34Mentions
0Explicit recommenders
27.6KGitHub stars
What to know before exploring
What it is
C++ Library Manager for Windows, Linux, and MacOS
GitHub
Where it is used
No documented product use was verified in the last source check.
What people are saying
No recommendation phrase was found in the indexed comments.
No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.
Also in these discussions
- cpp-pm/hunter · linked in 2 of the same discussions
Mentioned in the same Hacker News threads. That is not proof they are substitutes.
This week on Hacker News
Nov 7–Nov 14 UTC · Direct repository links and separately labeled related project stories. Indexed through 11/14/2026, 3:56:07 PM UTC.
No direct repository links were found in the indexed HN discussions over the past seven days. Older discussions are available below.
Mentions over time
HN mentions by year34 dated mentions
Observed mentions: 2016-09-30 12:46:27 UTC to 2024-11-03 00:03:26 UTC.
Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.
View mention counts and date ranges
| Period | Start (UTC) | End (exclusive, UTC) | Mentions | Submissions | Comments |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2016 | 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 1 | 0 |
| 2017 | 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| 2018 | 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 7 | 2 | 5 |
| 2019 | 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 3 | 1 | 2 |
| 2020 | 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 6 | 1 | 5 |
| 2021 | 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| 2022 | 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| 2023 | 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 4 | 0 | 4 |
| 2024 | 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC | 5 | 0 | 5 |
From the project README
An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.
Read the project’s introduction
🌐 Read in a different language
vcpkg overview
vcpkg is a free and open-source C/C++ package manager maintained by Microsoft
and the C++ community.
Initially launched in 2016 as a tool for assisting developers in migrating their
projects to newer versions of Visual Studio, vcpkg has evolved into a
cross-platform tool used by developers on Windows, macOS, and Linux. vcpkg has a
large collection of open-source libraries and enterprise-ready features designed to
facilitate your development process with support for any build and project
systems. vcpkg is a C++ tool at heart and is written in C++ with scripts in
CMake. It is designed from the ground up to address the unique pain points C/C++
developers experience.
This tool and ecosystem are constantly evolving, and we always appreciate
contributions! Learn how to start contributing with our packaging
tutorial and maintainer
guide.
Get started
First, follow one of our quick start guides.
Whether you're using CMake, MSBuild, or any other build system, vcpkg has you covered:
vcpkg with CMake
vcpkg with MSBuild
vcpkg with other build systems
You can also use any editor:
vcpkg with Visual Studio
vcpkg with Visual Studio Code
vcpkg with
CLion
vcpkg with Qt Creator
If a library you need is not present in the vcpkg registry, open an issue on
the GitHub repository or contribute the package
yourself.
After you've gotten vcpkg installed and working, you may wish to add
tab completion to your terminal.
Use vcpkg
Create a manifest for your project's dependencies:
vcpkg new --application
vcpkg add port fmt
Or install packages through the command line:
vcpkg install fmt
Then use one of our available integrations for
CMake,
MSBuild or
other build
systems.
For a short description of all available commands, run vcpkg help.
Run vcpkg help [topic] for details on a specific topic.
Key features
vcpkg offers powerful features for your package management needs:
easily integrate with your build system
control the versions of your dependencies
package and publish your own packages
reuse your binary artifacts
enable offline scenarios with asset caching
Contribute
vcpkg is an open source project, and is thus built with your contributions. Here
are some ways you can contribute:
Submit issues in vcpkg or existing packages
Submit fixes and new packages
Please refer to our maintainer guide and
packaging tutorial for more details.
This project has adopted the Microsoft Open Source Code of
Conduct. For more information see the Code of Conduct
FAQ or email
opencode@microsoft.com with any additional
questions or comments.
Resources
Ports: Microsoft/vcpkg
Source code: Microsoft/vcpkg-tool
Docs: Microsoft Learn | vcpkg
Website: vcpkg.io
Email: vcpkg@microsoft.com
Discord: #include <C++>'s Discord server, in the #🌏vcpkg channel
Slack: C++ Alliance's Slack server, in the #vcpkg channel
License
The code in this repository is licensed under the MIT License. The libraries
provided by ports are licensed under the terms of their original authors. Where
available, vcpkg places the associated license(s) in the location
installed/<triplet>/share/<port>/copyright.
Security
Most ports in vcpkg build the libraries in question using the original build
system preferred by the original developers of those libraries, and download
source code and build tools from their official distribution locations. For use
behind a firewall, the specific access needed will depend on which ports are
being installed. If you must install it in an "air gapped" environment, consider
installing once in a non-"air gapped" environment, populating an asset
cache shared with the otherwise "air gapped"
environment.
Telemetry
vcpkg collects usage data in order to help us improve your experience. The data
collected by Microsoft is anonymous. You can opt-out of telemetry by:
running the bootstrap-vcpkg script with -disableMetrics
passing --disable-metrics to vcpkg on the command line
setting the VCPKG_DISABLE_METRICS environment variable
Read more about vcpkg telemetry at https://learn.microsoft.com/vcpkg/about/privacy.
Read the full README on GitHubWhat Hacker News says
34 sourcesre: C/C++ development: anybody using conda/pixi for dependency management? Here's an example of compiling a C++ SDL program using pixi and the SDL dependency from conda-forge [1].
Seems viable as a replacement for things like vckpg [2] which only builds from source.
I'm still researching this but it seems like rattler [3] is the tool to use to build/publish packages. The supported repos are: prefix.dev's own hosting, anaconda.org, artifactory or a self-hosted server.
--
1: https://github.com/prefix-dev/pixi/blob/main/examples/cpp-sd...
2: https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg
3: https://prefix-dev.github.io/rattler-build/latest/authentica...
In Xmake: A cross-platform build utility based on Luaa user offered 5.6.0 and 5.4.5 in an issue to microsoft/vcpkg
5.4.5 can be compromised
https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg/issues/37197
In Backdoor in upstream xz/liblzma leading to SSH server compromiseApparently, many.
It looks like gettext may be containing a part of their attack infrastructure.
https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg/pull/37199#pullrequestrev...
https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg/pull/37356/files#diff-e16...
https://github.com/MonicaLiu0311
In Backdoor in upstream xz/liblzma leading to SSH server compromiseOut of curiosity I looked at the list of followers of the account who committed the backdoor.
Randomly picked https://github.com/Neustradamus and looked at all their contributions.
Interestingly enough, they got Microsoft to upgrade ([0],[1]) `vcpkg` to liblzma 5.6.0 3 weeks ago.
[0] https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg/issues/37197
[1] https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg/pull/37199
In Backdoor in upstream xz/liblzma leading to SSH server compromisevcpkg may expire assets after 1.5 years, so to achieve long-term reproducibility you will need to cache your dependencies.... Somewhere. Not sure what the expected solution is.
https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg/pull/30546#issuecomment-1...
In Dependencies Belong in Version Control>Find one large tech corp that still uses master.
https://github.com/airbnb/javascript
https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg
https://github.com/PowerShell/PowerShell
https://github.com/golang/go
https://github.com/Netflix/zuul
In Did Reddit just denylist all IPs?The fact that Buck2 is written in a statically-compilable language is compelling, compared to Bazel and others. It's also great that Windows appears to be supported out of the box [1,1a] -- and even tested in CI. I'm curious how much "real world" usage it's gotten on Windows, if any.
I don't see many details about the sandboxing/hermetic build story in the docs, and in particular whether it is supported at all on Linux or Windows (the only mention in the docs is Darwin).
It's a good sign that the Conan integration PR [2] was warmly received (if not merged, yet). I would hope that the system is extensible enough to allow hooking in other dependency managers like vcpkg. Using an external PM loses some of the benefits, but it also dramatically reduces the level of effort for initial adoption. I think bazel suffered from the early difficultie
Read the rest
s integrating with other systems, although IIUC rules_foreign_cc is much better now. If I'm following the code/examples correctly, Buck2 supports C++ out of the box, but I can't quite tell if/how it would integrate with CMake or others in the way that rules_foreign_cc does.
(one of the major drawbacks of vcpkg is that it can't do parallel dependency builds [3]. If Buck2 was able to consume a vcpkg dependency tree and build it in parallel, that would be a very attractive prospect -- wishcasting here)
[1] https://buck2.build/docs/developers/windows_cheat_sheet/
[1a] https://github.com/facebook/buck2/blob/738cc398ccb9768567288...
[2] https://github.com/facebook/buck2/pull/58
[3] https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg/discussions/19129
Also causing issues due to a change that's made release source tars change [1] (changing hash), so build systems are rejecting [2].
1: https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/gitlab/-/issues/402616
2: https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg/issues/30481
In GitHub Actions Incident 29.3vcpkg [1] is also a workable C package manager. It mainly has C++ packages but does include a few C packages e.g. glib [2]. In addition, you can use it on a separate list of package recipes (portfiles as vcpkg calls them), in case you want to use packages not in the central repo. It's based on CMake and runs on Windows and Linux (and other platforms I think but I haven't tried).
[1] https://vcpkg.io/
[2] https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg/tree/master/ports/glib
In C Package Manager> "it does generate something compatible with VST2.x and I've been working on VST3 this week-end (and pulling a few hairs, that API is horrendous, the smallest example is a few thousand lines of codes)."
Oh that is awesome!!!
If you want a tip about the smallest possible VST3 implementation, (and maybe you already know this) there is a class called "SingleComponentEffect", and an example called "AGainSimple" that uses it and is a fully self-contained single file full VST3 plugin:
https://github.com/steinbergmedia/vst3_public_sdk/search?q=s...
Also, I spent some time trying to get VST3 SDK usable with vcpkg so you could just do:
// vcpkg.json
{
"name": "my-audio-lib",
"dependencies": [
{
"name": "vst3sdk",
"version>=": "3.7.3"
}
]
}
And your CMake would just install it for you:
https://github
Read the rest
.com/microsoft/vcpkg/issues/5660#issuecomment-...
It ended up requiring more changes than this, but in the end I wound up fixing the CMake build so it spit out both the VST3 SDK (helper classes) shared lib and the almost-header-only lib ("pluginterfaces" directory).
I ought to upload the patches somewhere in case it's useful for you/anyone else.
> "yes, that's a goal, make your DSP processor in C++ and then write a small UI for it in python or QML without having to write binding code."
That would be incredible! I think the industry focus on doing UI in C++ is a bit nutty, as an outsider (but what do I know).
> "- asm("...") only wants string literals, strings generated through constexpr don't cut it (otherwise it'd be possible and even relatively easy to generate e.g."
Waaay over my head!!
Just to add a small detail: vcpkg also has Visual Studio integration, not only CMake.
And regarding repositories, since February 2021 vcpkg has an experimental support for them. You can read the spec here: https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg/blob/master/docs/specific....
In All C++20 core language features with examplesI believe that's a recent development but vcpkg has decent binary caching now: https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg/blob/master/docs/users/bi....
Edit: they also have an experimental support for registries since February of this year: https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg/blob/master/docs/specific...
In All C++20 core language features with examplesHave you tried vcpkg?
https://github.com/Microsoft/vcpkg
It's a tool to manage C++ dependencies (using CMake), created and maintained by Microsoft. A lot of open source projects are supported (you can see part of the list here: https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg/tree/master/ports).
In All C++20 core language features with examplesC++ has several package managers, of varying levels of maturity. Here's a few:
https://github.com/conan-io/conan
https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg
https://github.com/cpp-pm/hunter
Another option if you're on Linux/BSD is to use your native package manager. C++ packages are usually included in those repositories. You also may be able to install Brew, Nix, or Guix on any given distribution.
In Std::visit is everything wrong with modern C++ (2017)Showing the 15 most recent of 34 sources. Enable JavaScript to search and browse every indexed mention.