HFW Mod Manager vs Zephyr

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.

Zephyr is a free desktop mod manager for browsing and installing mods, then switching between game mod profiles. It supports about 200 games out of the box and combines Thunderstore and CurseForge browsing in one search. Mods are deployed by copying them, and users can share a profile code or link so friends can reproduce a setup. Optional cloud sync requires signing in with Discord and enabling the feature. Zephyr also includes an Archipelago multiworld randomizer with Python bundled, a BepInEx configuration editor, and gamepad navigation throughout the interface. Customization includes seven themes, custom fonts and colors, and seven language options. The app is available for Windows, macOS, and Linux, and is distributed under the GPL-3.0 license. The maker says that without sign-in, personal data stays on the device and mod metadata requests are anonymous. With cloud sync enabled, profile archives and metadata are stored with the maker's hosting provider in France. The Windows build is not code-signed and the macOS build is not notarized.