Basic Setup Builder Alternatives

Inno Setup

Inno Setup is a free installer for Windows programs. First introduced in 1997, Inno Setup today rivals and even surpasses many commercial installers in feature set and stability.

Features:

• Cross-platform
• Customizable
• Software installer

NSIS

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. Being a users first experience with your product, a stable and reliable installer is an important component of successful software. With NSIS you can create such installers that are capable of doing everything that is needed to setup your software.

Features:

• Portable
• Scriptable
• Software installer

WiX

The Windows Installer XML (WiX) is a toolset that builds Windows installation packages from XML source code. The toolset supports a command line environment that developers may integrate into their build processes to build MSI and MSM setup packages.

Features:

• Command line
• Software installer
• WixEdit
• WixPie IDE

Advanced Installer

Advanced Installer is a powerful and easy to use setup authoring tool which offers full Windows Installer support and more. You can configure every aspect of your installer through a simple graphical user interface or through its command line.

IzPack

IzPack is a one-stop solution for packaging, distributing and deploying applications. It is fully cross-platform and generates a single installer. As such, it is an alternative to native solutions such as platform-specific installers and package managers. IzPack-generated installers only require a Java virtual machine to run. Many companies and projects have been using IzPack over the years.

InstallForge

InstallForge is a very easy-to-use and flexible tool for creating fast installation packages for Windows.

Wix#

Wix# answers many MSI authoring challenges. It solves the common MSI/WiX authoring limitations in a very elegant and yet unorthodox way. Wix# follows the steps of other transcompilers like Script#, CoffeeScript or GWT by using source code of a more manageable syntax (C# in this case) to produce the desired source code of a less manageable syntax (WiX).

CreateInstall

Professional installer software is an essential component for any software developer. The ideology behind the CreateInstall installer is based on two main principles. Complete control over the installation process and unlimited scalability. If you want to know what your installation package does step by step and want to it to perform certain operations at certain times, CreateInstall is your choice.