HFW Mod Manager vs RimModManager

HFW Mod Manager is a free graphical tool for managing and packing mods for supported Decima-engine games. The listed games are Horizon Forbidden West, Death Stranding 2, and Horizon Zero Dawn Remastered, which is marked as a work in progress. Users can add mod folders or ZIP files by drag and drop, choose variations, preview them with metadata, and pack enabled mods. Named presets save mod lists, and packing follows list order so later entries can override earlier ones. The manager can detect a known game directory and check game-version compatibility. Supported archive formats include .zip, .rar, .7z, .gaia, .forbidden, and .hfwz. Other features include hair patching, batch hair patching, and experimental face-shading fixes for custom face meshes. The Cauldron tab offers asset export, streaming-file building, and animation conversion; some functions require HFW Tools or DS2 Tools. The app is built natively for Windows. Windows users extract the ZIP into its own folder and launch HFW_MM.exe; it is not installed locally. Linux use requires adding it to Steam and running it with Proton 10.0-4 or newer.

RimModManager is a free, open-source tool for organizing RimWorld mods across Steam, GOG, Proton, Wine, Flatpak, and standalone installations. It offers platform-specific detection, profiles, and drag-and-drop ordering, as well as search, filters, and dependency sorting. Mod activation uses symlinks and does not alter the mods themselves; for Proton and Wine, it uses copy mode instead. A conflict resolver identifies clashes and offers fix suggestions. Its built-in Steam Workshop browser supports queued and batch downloads, collection parsing, update checks, and subscriber and rating details. Workshop downloads require SteamCMD, though the wiki says anonymous downloads do not need a Steam login. Users can save and load profiles, with automatic backups before major changes, and import or export ModsConfig.xml. A text mod list with Workshop links can also be exported. RimModManager runs on Linux, macOS, and Windows. PyQt6-WebEngine is optional for its embedded Workshop browser. The wiki notes that collections of 500 or more mods may take time to scan.