GHCup vs rustup
GHCup
haskell.org
rustup
rustup.rsSide by side
| Figure | GHCup | rustup |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | — |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Runtime Version Managers | 8.6 (#1) | 8.2 (#5) |
| Cross compilation | The FAQ lists GHC cross-compilation among GHCup's functionality. | rustup provides binary standard-library releases for many platforms and installs targets with `rustup target add`. |
| Installation | The site provides terminal installation instructions for Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, and WSL2, and PowerShell instructions for Windows. | Unix installation uses a shell script, while Windows installation uses rustup-init.exe. |
| Purpose | GHCup is the main installer for the general purpose language Haskell. | rustup installs the Rust programming language from official release channels. |
| Security | The installation instructions use HTTPS with TLS 1.2 or later for the Linux, macOS, FreeBSD, and WSL2 bootstrap command. | rustup downloads over HTTPS but does not yet validate download signatures. |
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.
rustup
rustup installs Rust from its official release channels and manages the toolchains and supporting components developers use. It can switch among stable, beta, and nightly compilers, keep toolchains updated, and install specific versions or dated releases. For cross-compilation, add a target’s standard library with `rustup target add`; Android builds also require the Android NDK and usually a linker. rustup manages official channels, archived releases, alternate hosts, and local builds. It installs command proxies for tools including rustc, rustdoc, Cargo, rust-analyzer, Clippy, and Miri. Component availability varies by release and toolchain, especially for nightly. Installation uses a shell script on Unix and rustup-init.exe on Windows. Downloads use HTTPS, but download signatures are not yet validated. rustup is free and open source, with a free plan. Its listed supported platforms are Linux, macOS, and Windows; the installer also runs on FreeBSD, NetBSD, Solaris, and illumos.