Electron Forge vs Master Packager Suite

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.

Master Packager Suite is Windows software for creating, editing and repackaging installer packages for mass deployment. Users can create MSI and MST files from scratch or modify vendor installers. The Pro edition converts EXE installers to MSI and MSIX, and templates can retain properties, registry details, summary information and custom actions for reuse. Master Packager Toolbox can upload packages to Microsoft Intune and Patch My PC Cloud Custom Apps. Master Wrapper guides users through PSAppDeployToolkit packaging and automates related tasks. Listed output formats include MSI, MSIX, MST and INTUNEWIN; command-line packaging, silent installation and auto-update support are also available. The product targets 64-bit Windows 10 and 11 and requires.NET Framework 4.8 or higher and Windows PowerShell 3.0 or higher. Community is free for personal and business use. Pro costs $1,199.00 per year per user, while Service Provider costs $1,399.00 per year per user and permits packaging services for third parties. A 30-day trial is listed.