Source 2 Viewer vs VPKEdit
Source 2 Viewer
s2v.appVPKEdit
github.comSide by side
| Figure | Source 2 Viewer | VPKEdit |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | — |
| Free plan | Yes | — |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 0 |
| Spec score · Game Asset Extractors | 8.3 (#4) | 6.9 (#22) |
| Command line | A cross platform console application can export and decompile Source 2 resources similarly to the main application. | A separate application named vpkeditcli provides a command-line interface and has no external dependencies. |
| Purpose | Source 2 Viewer browses VPK archives and views, exports, and decompiles Source 2 assets such as maps, models, materials, textures, and sounds. | VPKEdit is an open source, MIT-licensed CLI and GUI tool for creating, extracting, previewing, and writing several pack file formats. |
| Security | The repository says free code signing is provided by SignPath.io, with a certificate from SignPath Foundation. | The project page identifies the tool as MIT-licensed but does not state security certifications or compliance claims. |
| Support | The maker directs users to report issues and notes that reports with a file path and error message usually get looked at quickly. | The repository directs users to its installation guide for step-by-step installation instructions. |
Plans
In their own words
Source 2 Viewer
Source 2 Viewer is a free, open-source tool for browsing VPK archives and inspecting or exporting assets from Source 2 games. It can search, extract, and create archives, including VPK versions from Source 1. Its renderer displays maps, models, physics, and particles with real-time lighting and animation playback. The tool also inspects textures, audio, shaders, and other Source 2 resources. Maps, models, physics, and animations can be exported to glTF 2.0, with material conversion and batch export; maps, models, and materials can be decompiled into editable formats for Hammer, ModelDoc, and Source 2 Workshop Tools. Texture tools cover channels, depth layers, mip levels, cubemaps, and HDR, with image export. Its audio player supports WAV, MP3, and Source 2 formats. The graphical interface is Windows-only, though the guide describes running it on Linux and macOS through Wine; the command-line utility is available for Windows, Linux, and macOS. The GUI is portable and requires no installation. Some data may be lost during export, and reverse-engineered format support is incomplete. The project is volunteer-built and says it is not affiliated with Valve.