Electron Forge vs electron-packager

Electron Forge is a free, open-source tool for packaging and distributing Electron applications on Windows, macOS, and Linux. Its build pipeline brings together code signing, installer creation, and artifact publishing. Makers generate platform-specific distributables, including Squirrel.Windows, ZIP, DEB, RPM, DMG, AppX, and Flatpak formats. Publishers can send outputs from the make command to distribution services, update servers, or storage such as an S3 bucket. Developers can initialize projects with create-electron-app and choose first-party Webpack, Webpack with TypeScript, Vite, or Vite with TypeScript templates. The Plugin API supports custom build logic, and custom Makers and Publishers can address additional build or storage targets. The GitHub Publisher supports GitHub Releases and, with host configuration, GitHub Enterprise. Documented auto-update options include a free Electron team service for open-source GitHub apps, static storage publishers, and a hosted update server; macOS auto-updates require a signed app. Getting started requires Node.js 16.4.0 or later, Git, and a JavaScript package manager. Packaging requires node_modules on disk and does not account for symlinked dependencies or Yarn Plug'n'Play.

electron-packager bundles Electron app source code with a renamed Electron executable and supporting files into folders ready for distribution. It works as a command-line tool or a Node.js library called through JavaScript. Packager can find or download a matching Electron release and build for a selected platform and architecture, all valid combinations, or the host combination. Output targets include Windows, macOS—including Mac App Store targets—and Linux; these are also the listed host platforms. Documented target architectures include x86, x86_64, arm64, universal macOS, Linux armv7l, and Linux mips64el, though some depend on Electron versions. CLI options include a regular-expression ignore filter for files and folders. Electron Forge uses Packager internally, and installer tools can use its output folders to create distributables. The free, open-source Node.js tool requires Node.js 22.12.0 or higher, and local installation is recommended. Signing a macOS or Mac App Store bundle requires building on a macOS host. The project also notes that even a minimal zipped app is approximately the size of the matching zipped Electron binary.