Electronic builder versus electronic packer

Question

What is the main difference between electron-builder and electron-packager . Are there sample projects for both? What is better for offline assembly of an .exe application?

Answer 1

The electronic packer was (update: modified in this commit: "refactor: merge electronic-packager") used by the electronic builder. This article says

If you really want to go to the city, take a look at the electronic builder who takes the packages produced by the electronic packer and creates automatic installers.

• electronic builder example

• electronic builder responsive design template

• React templateplate electronic packaging project , although there is a GitHub Problem for using an electronic builder .

Answer 2

August 2019 update

I've been using the electron builder for over a year now, packing my application for macOS, Windows 10, and Ubuntu Desktop. The maintainer, develar, added a great documentation site earlier this year and is monitoring the gatekeeper's changes on macOS to ensure installers and updaters work.

November 2018 update

The main developer of the electronic designer continues to invest heavily in the project, including support for Electron 3, new places for publishing artifacts and regularly releases bug fixes. The previous maintainer resigned from the electronic package and they still do not have an accompanying windows, and it still does not have support for signed Windows binaries . For reference:

electron-packager ( 72 releases, 17 open issues, 639 closed) electron-builder (651 releases, 399 open issues, 2,603 closed) 

December 2017 update

Over the past year, serious work has been done on the electronic builder , weekly new versions with functions and bug fixes were released. The documentation at https://www.electron.build/ is excellent, and following the Quick Install Guide (on the first page, several sections below) includes a sample project and step-by-step instructions.

June 2017 update

electron-builder performs both the packaging step (similar to what electron-packager ) and creates installers for a specific platform (for example, pkg or Mac AppStore for Mac, NSIS or Windows Store for Windows and AppImage for Linux).

For my existing project, electron-forge failed with the “missing dependency” that was present in my package.json and node_modules ).

This is not well documented, but electron-builder switched from Squirrel.windows to NSIS earlier this year as the default Windows installer. NSIS makes significantly smaller installation packages (30 MB compared to 90 MB in my project case).

Original post

As of March 2017, for the most part, they have a parity of characteristics. I found the following:

• Both of them are in the organization of the electronic user , therefore both of them are "legal".
• There is no accompanying Windows in the electronic packer
• The electronic designer has more participants and many closed questions, so there may have been more errors or more users. The electron packer has more stars.
• electronic builder supports significantly more target formats than electronic packer
• Electron-Forge is based on an electronic packer, so it can be an easier “out of the box” experience.

Answer 3

The electronic packer downloads the source code and generates an executable file.

The electron builder can generate an installer with support for "automatic updates" in the electron.

http://electron.atom.io/docs/api/auto-updater/

Answer 4

Well, I know this thread is old, but I would suggest that someone / everyone use electronic-forge , it will make your life better, and I think you will feel more wise using it. I personally had waking nightmares running into packaging problems. He has a very simple client, install it globally and your dreams can come true.

Hope this helps! Don’t worry, I didn’t do this, but it helps me to create desktop applications.

Answer 5

You can use this https://github.com/SimulatedGREG/electron-vue/ to create a template using vue and electron, it supports both the electronic packer and the electronic builder.

For me, I always prefer an electronic builder because it is much easier for me and can generate binary using travis ci and appveyor and pulish for github release, like this repo, I did https://github.com/gengjiawen/android -studio-helper / releases .

Answer 6

electron builder is the best choice!