GHCup vs perlbrew
GHCup
haskell.orgperlbrew
perlbrew.plSide by side
| Figure | GHCup | perlbrew |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Runtime Version Managers | 8.6 (#1) | 7.7 (#13) |
| Spec score · Development Environment Managers | 8.5 (#7) | 7.6 (#32) |
| Configuration | GHCup configuration can be placed in ~/.ghcup/config.yaml, and command-line options override configuration file settings. | The `PERLBREW_ROOT` environment variable can change the default root directory from `~/perl5/perlbrew`. |
| Installation | The site provides terminal installation instructions for Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, and WSL2, and PowerShell instructions for Windows. | The documented quick install runs the perlbrew installer with curl and bash. |
| Purpose | GHCup is the main installer for the general purpose language Haskell. | perlbrew is an admin-free tool for managing multiple Perl installations. |
Plans
In their own words
GHCup
GHCup is a free, open-source installer and version manager for the Haskell toolchain. It installs and manages GHC, cabal-install, Haskell Language Server (HLS), and Stack versions; Stack can also be configured to use GHC versions managed by GHCup. Listed functionality includes a terminal user interface and GHC cross-compilation. Installation guidance covers terminal commands for Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, and WSL2, alongside PowerShell instructions for Windows. The project describes Windows support as being in an early stage and uses a shim wrapper because Windows does not properly support symbolic links. On macOS, GHCup may prompt for command line tools; Windows setup includes msys2. The installer should be run as a non-root user on Unix-like systems and a non-admin user on Windows. GHCup relies on precompiled binaries, so compatibility can depend on the distribution and libraries such as libtinfo. WSL1 and macOS versions earlier than 10.13 are unsupported. Some ARM binaries are experimental: Stack and HLS on Linux ARM, and HLS bindists on macOS aarch64. Configuration can be stored in ~/.ghcup/config.yaml, with command-line options taking precedence.