Top 4 C++ Installer Projects

Squirrel

37 7,146 6.0 C++

An installation and update framework for Windows desktop apps

Project mention: ClickOnce | /r/dotnet | 2023-11-11

I never had much luck with ClickOnce, so I was using Squirrel.Windows. I've recently switched to the Clowd.Squirrel fork, since I needed support for AzureSignTool in the build process.
LxRunOffline

6 3,961 0.0 C++

A full-featured utility for managing Windows Subsystem for Linux (WSL)
InfluxDB

www.influxdata.com
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Power Real-Time Data Analytics at Scale. Get real-time insights from all types of time series data with InfluxDB. Ingest, query, and analyze billions of data points in real-time with unbounded cardinality.
calamares

46 1,285 9.8 C++

Distribution-independent installer framework

Project mention: Guide: Install Debian with Encrypted Root and Unencrypted Boot. | /r/linux4noobs | 2023-06-13

The reasons for wanting /boot to be unencrypted are varied. Maybe you want (much) faster boot time, or maybe you want to use a nice GRUB or Plymouth theme, or you use GRUB in a Multi-Boot scenario where you don't want/need to go through encryption first. Encrypting the /boot partition offers that extra .002% of security by protecting against Evil Maid attacks (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evil_maid_attack), but comes with several tradeoffs which may not justify using it when it doesn't really apply to 99.998% of peoples' threat model. We can debate this here, but I feel like this has been pretty extensively covered online (e.g. https://github.com/calamares/calamares/issues/1311) so feel free to do a search if you want to learn more. This guide is for people who are aware of the potential security risks, but for whom an Evil Maid attack is not something they need to worry about. Is this you? Cool! Read on...
nsis

3 596 6.2 C++

***This is just a mirror of https://sf.net/projects/nsis -- please report issues there*** NSIS (Nullsoft Scriptable Install System) is a professional open source system to create Windows installers. It is designed to be as small and flexible as possible and is therefore very suitable for internet distribution.

NOTE: The open source projects on this list are ordered by number of github stars. The number of mentions indicates repo mentiontions in the last 12 Months or since we started tracking (Dec 2020). The latest post mention was on 2023-11-11.