GHCup vs PortBay

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.

PortBay is a local development environment for running apps on a Mac and dispatching AI coding agents from a task board. Cards can be assigned to Claude Code, Codex, Cursor, or Antigravity; each card can have its own Git worktree so multiple agents can work on one repository at once. PortBay provides local project runtimes, trusted HTTPS on.test domains, per-project MySQL and PostgreSQL databases, and Mailpit email capture. Community includes public Cloudflare and SSH tunnels. Pro adds persistent SSH options including keep-alive, auto-reconnect, reverse tunnels, SOCKS proxy, and multi-hop. PortBay says source code is not uploaded and project files, task cards, the board, and agent comments stay on the machine. Agent sandboxing is on by default and denies access to credential stores and.env files outside the assigned project. The free Community plan supports up to six projects, two sandboxed runs, and one Mac. Pro is $10 a month for the first 100 licences while the subscription remains active, then $24 a month; it includes a 7-day trial. PortBay supports macOS and Linux; Windows is on the roadmap.