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ScoopInstaller
Scoop
PowerShell2013–2026
ScoopInstaller / Scoop

Scoop

A command-line installer for Windows.

Command LineMobile & Desktop
Explore on GitHubRead Hacker News discussions
23Distinct people
32Mentions
1Explicit recommenders
24.8KGitHub stars
REPOSITORY AT A GLANCE

What to know before exploring

What it is

A command-line installer for Windows.

GitHub

Where it is used

No documented product use was verified in the last source check.

What people are saying

Scoop is my favorite tool of this type on Windows, but it's not a package manager either[1]: > Simpler than packaging. Scoop isn't a package manager, rather it reads plain JSON…

imiric used a recommendation phrase. One indexed comment matches. This is a phrase match, not a verdict.

No classified warning is attached to this page. Read the discussions before treating silence as approval.

Also in these 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, 5:04:57 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 year32 dated mentions

Observed mentions: 2013-09-25 11:32:36 UTC to 2026-03-04 00:23:33 UTC.

024682013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 4 mentions; 1 submissions, 3 comments20132014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 1 submissions, 1 comments2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 8 mentions; 0 submissions, 8 comments20192020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 3 mentions; 0 submissions, 3 comments2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 5 mentions; 0 submissions, 5 comments2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 2 mentions; 0 submissions, 2 comments2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 0 mentions; 0 submissions, 0 comments2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC to 2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (exclusive): 1 mentions; 0 submissions, 1 comments. Incomplete calendar period.2026*

* An incomplete calendar period is marked with an outlined bar. Its count is not directly comparable with a full period.

Counts come from the repository’s dated source evidence. Index cutoff: 2026-11-02 08:16:59 UTC.

View mention counts and date ranges
UTC ranges include their start and exclude their end. Select a period to filter the source evidence.
PeriodStart (UTC)End (exclusive, UTC)MentionsSubmissionsComments
20132013-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC413
20142014-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20152015-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20162016-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC211
20172017-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20182018-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC303
20192019-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC808
20202020-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC303
20212021-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC505
20222022-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC202
20232023-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
20242024-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101
20252025-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC000
2026 (partial)2026-01-01 00:00:00 UTC2027-01-01 00:00:00 UTC101

From the project README

An excerpt from the repository, fetched Nov 13, 2026.

Read the project’s introduction
Scoop Features | Installation | Documentation Scoop is a command-line installer for Windows. What does Scoop do? Scoop installs apps from the command line with a minimal amount of friction. It: Eliminates User Account Control (UAC) prompt notifications. Hides the graphical user interface (GUI) of wizard-style installers. Prevents polluting the PATH environment variable. Normally, this variable gets cluttered as different apps are installed on the device. Avoids unexpected side effects from installing and uninstalling apps. Resolves and installs dependencies automatically. Performs all the necessary steps to get an app to a working state. Scoop is quite script-friendly. Your environment can become the way you like by using repeatable setups. For example: scoop install sudo sudo scoop install 7zip git openssh --global scoop install aria2 curl grep sed less touch scoop install python ruby go perl If you have built software that you would like others to use, Scoop is an alternative to building an installer (like MSI or InnoSetup). You just need to compress your app to a .zip file and provide a JSON manifest that describes how to install it. Installation Run the following commands from a regular (non-admin) PowerShell terminal to install Scoop: Set-ExecutionPolicy -ExecutionPolicy RemoteSigned -Scope CurrentUser Invoke-RestMethod -Uri https://get.scoop.sh | Invoke-Expression Note: The first command makes your device allow running the installation and management scripts. This is necessary because Windows 10 client devices restrict execution of any PowerShell scripts by default. It will install Scoop to its default location: C:\Users\<YOUR USERNAME>\scoop You can find the complete documentation about the installer, including advanced installation configurations, in ScoopInstaller/Install. Please create new issues there if you have questions about the installation. Multi-connection downloads with aria2 Scoop can utilize aria2 to use multi-connection downloads. Simply install aria2 through Scoop and it will be used for all downloads afterward. scoop install aria2 By default, scoop displays a warning when running scoop install or scoop update while aria2 is enabled. This warning can be suppressed by running scoop config aria2-warning-enabled false. You can tweak the following aria2 settings with the scoop config command: aria2-enabled (default: true) aria2-warning-enabled (default: true) aria2-fallback-enabled (default: true) aria2-retry-wait (default: 2) aria2-split (default: 5) aria2-max-connection-per-server (default: 5) aria2-min-split-size (default: 5M) aria2-options (default: ) Inspiration Homebrew Sub What sort of apps can Scoop install? The apps that are most likely to get installed fine with Scoop are those referred to as "portable" apps. These apps are compressed files which can run standalone after being extracted. This type of app does not produce side effects like changing the Windows Registry or placing files outside the app directory. Scoop also supports installer files and their uninstallation methods. Likewise, it can handle single-file apps and PowerShell scripts. These do not even need to be compressed. See the runat package for an example: it is simply a GitHub gist. Contribute to this project If you would like to improve Scoop by adding features or fixing bugs, please read our Contributing Guide. Support this project If you find Scoop useful and would like to support the ongoing development and maintenance of this project, you can donate here: PayPal (one-time donations) Known application buckets The following buckets are known to Scoop: main - Default bucket which contains popular non-GUI apps. extras - Apps that do not fit the main bucket's criteria. games - Open-source and freeware video games and game-related tools. nerd-fonts - Nerd Fonts. nirsoft - A collection of over 250+ apps from Nirsoft. sysinternals - The Sysinternals suite from Microsoft. java - A collection of Java development kits (JDKs) and Java runtime engines (JREs), Java's virtual machine debugging tools and Java based runtime engines. nonportable - Non-portable apps (may trigger UAC prompts). php - Installers for most versions of PHP. versions - Alternative versions of apps found in other buckets. The main bucket is installed by default. You can make use of more buckets by typing: scoop bucket add <name> For example, to add the extras bucket, type: scoop bucket add extras You would be able to install apps from the extras bucket now. Other application buckets Many other application buckets hosted on GitHub can be found on ScoopSearch or via other search engines.
Read the full README on GitHub

What Hacker News says

32 sources
deevus·Mar 4, 2026
Location: Wollongong, Australia (UTC+10/+11) Remote: Yes Willing to relocate: No Technologies: Zig, C, Terraform, Docker, Linux, Go, Python, Laravel, Node, React, TypeScript, Flutter/iOS, Godot, PostgreSQL, AWS Resume/CV: https://github.com/deevus Email: See GitHub profile LinkedIn: https://linkedin.com/in/deevus Solo consultant (Simon Hartcher Services) and former startup CTO. Co-founding maintainer of Scoop (23k+ stars). True full-stack developer comfortable at every level of the stack. Recent work and open source: - Scoop - Windows CLI installer (https://github.com/ScoopInstaller/Scoop) - TrueNAS Terraform provider and Go client: https://github.com/deevus/terraform-provider-truenas - Pixels - disposable Linux containers for AI coding agents: https://github.com/deevus/pixels - Cryptographic protocol implementation in Zig (O
Read the rest
penSSL FFI) for fraud prevention - Godot bindings for Zig: https://github.com/gdzig/gdzig - compile_flagz (C/C++ IDE integration for Zig builds): https://github.com/deevus/compile_flagz - Games on itch.io (https://doubleword-labs.itch.io), developing Parasite Attack 1984 for Steam (https://store.steampowered.com/app/3245960/Parasite_Attack_1...). Siligong Valley game-dev organiser Looking for: contracts (short or long-term) or full-time remote. Interested in infrastructure tooling, dev tools, systems programming, or anything Zig-adjacent. 4-day workweek is a plus.
In Ask HN: Who wants to be hired? (March 2026)
c-hendricks·Mar 25, 2024
Copying from a comment I made on Ars: Where scoop differs, which might be good or bad depending on your point of view, is that it installs software to its own location, and self-updating apps don't self update. So, tutorials and programs have to take Scoop into account[1] since they won't be installed to their usual locations (bonus: scoop itself can be installed to your users home directory, or to C:\ProgramData\scoop). Another wart is that maintainers of scoop recommend using scoop + winget[2]. I think it's neat, but personally, I just use winget to install things, and a variety of portable apps on a secondary drive (in fact, winget supports installing one-off programs to random locations). Another nice thing about winget is being able to update and manage software that wasn't installed with it too. [1]: https://github.com/microsoft/vsc
Read the rest
ode/issues/123205#issuecomme... [2]: https://github.com/ScoopInstaller/Scoop/issues/3691#issuecom...
In Mutt on Windows Without WSL
gregmac·Mar 31, 2022
There's a good comparison on the Scoop wiki [1]. Chocolatey is a mixed bag. Since it is basically just wrapper scripts around upstream installers, it very much depends on what the upstream installer does. To me, it acts less like a package manager (apt) and more like a rudimentary installer runner. This causes all kinds of annoying usability issues. Chocolatey doesn't know if you uninstall via Add/Remove programs, or update via standalone or self-update mechanism, and will just show incorrect install and/or version info, and fail to upgrade properly. A lot of packages don't even install the version that Chocolatey says, but instead just install the latest at time of install. Scoop is way different, and has none of these problems. Funny enough, they describe it as "not a package manager" but it feels way closer to apt to me. Everything is
Read the rest
essentially a portable version of the app, and it puts them in ~/scoop/apps/[name]/[version], creates a junction (symlink) to ~/scoop/apps/[name]/current, and adds executable "shims" to ~/scoop/shims (which is in the user's path). There's no Windows "uninstall" entry, no versions to be desync'd, and no hidden garbage that can sneak in. [1] https://github.com/ScoopInstaller/Scoop/wiki/Chocolatey-Comp...
In Dagger: a new way to build CI/CD pipelines
e12e·Apr 21, 2021
I thought there was a mingw build, but apparently not. :/ You see that slow file access with cygwin? Last time I had such a use case for windows, I used unision - but isn't rsync, of course. https://www.cis.upenn.edu/~bcpierce/unison/ Judging by this scoop.sh issue, there are no obvious not-cygwin builds/ports: https://github.com/lukesampson/scoop/issues/2295 Looks like there are libraries for rust and go - but not clients that are a drop in replacement (yet).
In Initial preview of GUI app support for the Windows Subsystem for Linux
iudqnolq·Apr 17, 2021
There's a patch to fix this. https://github.com/lukesampson/scoop/pull/4137 I'm pretty unhappy with the behavior of the maintainers to the author, though. There are better ways to suggest issues with documentation than just "this is a lie", and better ways to say a function name could be better than "is a horrible name". I also think it's rude to ask for a patch to be completely rewritten and then ignore it after the author does so.
In WinGet is terrible, I want AppGet back
imiric·Apr 17, 2021Recommendation phrase
Scoop is my favorite tool of this type on Windows, but it's not a package manager either[1]: > Simpler than packaging. Scoop isn't a package manager, rather it reads plain JSON manifests that describe how to install a program and its dependencies. I haven't tried WinGet, but Chocolatey still seems like the best package manager on Windows. Which is unfortunate, as it's very unfriendly to use, promotes their Pro plans too agressively, and like the article says, slow. [1]: https://github.com/lukesampson/scoop/wiki/Chocolatey-Compari...
In WinGet is terrible, I want AppGet back
e12e·Aug 12, 2019
I think I'd rather say "sidestep" UAC - if you drop an exe in your "documents" folder, there's no UAC prompt. Scoop doesn't write to protected areas by default. I suppose it's entirely possible to change this via draconian policies (to have the equivalent of mounting home noexec) - and conversely, for global installs - you need to abide by UAC in the form of "sudo": https://github.com/lukesampson/scoop/wiki/Global-Installs
In Ask HN: Configuration Management for Personal Computer?

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