GHCup vs pyenv
GHCup
haskell.orgpyenv
github.comSide by side
| Figure | GHCup | pyenv |
|---|---|---|
| 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) | 7.4 (#19) |
| Spec score · Development Environment Managers | 8.5 (#7) | 7.3 (#39) |
| Installation | The site provides terminal installation instructions for Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, and WSL2, and PowerShell instructions for Windows. | The README documents installation on Linux/Unix and macOS, including a shell installer, Git checkout, and Homebrew. |
| Purpose | GHCup is the main installer for the general purpose language Haskell. | pyenv lets users switch between multiple Python versions. |
| Security | The installation instructions use HTTPS with TLS 1.2 or later for the Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, and WSL2 bootstrap command. | The v2.8.0 changelog lists a fix for CVE-2026-68939 involving glob character handling in .python-version. |
| Windows support | The project describes Windows support as being in early stages and says GHCup uses a shim wrapper because Windows does not support symbolic links properly. | The project says it does not officially support Windows and does not work outside Windows Subsystem for Linux; it recommends the pyenv-win fork for native Windows Python versions. |
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.