Are there any advantages of using the aur over flatpaks?

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1

I understand that a lot of people use the aur for software that they can’t get from the main repositories.
but if it’s available as a flatpak would you always want to get that instead? And, on top of that, if it’s available in the main repositories would you always use that instead of flatpaks or the aur?

2

Both have advantages and drawbacks.

  • AUR PKGBUILD files are public and allow users to know how it is built and installed
  • AUR packages use system installed dependencies, contrarily to Flatpaks
    • Flatpaks can thus run the same everywhere (theoretically)
    • system installed dependencies are usually more up-to-date on cutting edge distros such as Arch/Manjaro
    • system installed dependencies are shared with other applications
    • system installed dependencies are not part of the package, thus the latter is lighter
  • AUR packages do not run isolated (by themselves), contrarily to Flatpaks
    • though if isolation is not set correctly, it can create issues
  • …

Packages from the repositories are usually to be preferred.

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3

Don’t think, there is a advantage to use flatpaks.

4

For out-of-repository packages that are a pain to build Flatpaks is a sensible choice

I maintain (and build) a lot of stuff on the AUR but it isn’t always the solution

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5

If I can, I use flatpak over AUR,
but first source is always the Manjaro-Repository.

2 Likes
6

AUR can install device drivers, shell extensions, build with files from github repo.
Flatpak have none of these

8

And it was never meant to, so there’s that.