Crowbar vs Rusted PackFile Manager

Crowbar is a free Windows tool for modding GoldSource and Source Engine games. It can decompile, compile, and view models, as well as unpack, inspect, and search Valve VPK, Garry's Mod GMA, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines VPK, Tactical Intervention FPX, and Fairy Tale Busters APK packages. It can also pack folders into Valve VPK and Garry's Mod GMA files. Decompilation can recreate QC, mesh, animation, and procedural-bone files, while batch workflows can process a selected folder and its subfolders. Crowbar supports downloading Workshop items and publishing them for several games. The maker says Windows XP or later and .NET Framework 4 are required. Compiling models needs the game's authoring tools or SDK and its studiomdl.exe; viewing models needs authoring tools or an SDK and hlmv.exe. The latest release shown is version 0.74, dated February 2023. Help materials include guides, tutorials, reference resources, Discord, and Steam discussions.

Rusted PackFile Manager (RPFM) opens, inspects, edits and saves PackFiles for Total War games from Empire onward, including Pharaoh, Warhammer 3, Troy, Three Kingdoms, Attila and Rome 2. Its pack editor handles multiple archives and supports bulk file additions, extraction, renaming, duplication and deletion. Editors cover database tables, localisation, scripts, animations, models and other listed game formats. The DB editor offers schema-aware lookups, sorting, filtering and TSV import and export; localisation data can also be exchanged through TSV. Global search and replace spans packs, vanilla data and parent mods, and diagnostics flag issues including invalid references, missing localisation, portrait variants and animation gaps. Per-game MyMod workspaces include asset folders, templates, import and export, and one-click installation to a game's data folder. Translation tools connect mod translations with the Total War Translation Hub. A headless server provides a documented WebSocket protocol and an MCP endpoint with more than 150 tools, prompts and resources. RPFM is free under the MIT License; listed platforms are API, Linux, self-hosted and Windows.