I’m using KDE Plasma not stable, I know Pamac is not supported, is it possible to use Shelly instead and will it work on Manjaro?
pamac is Manjaro’s official package manager, so what gives you the idea that it wouldn’t be supported? 
It should be, yes. Some people here at the forum have already been experimenting with it. 
Yes, but you’ll probably have to configure it to use the correct mirrors. It’s an AUR package, which means that it’s designed to work with Arch. As such, it probably comes preconfigured to use Arch’s mirrors.
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Actually, it reads mirrors from /etc/pacman.conf. The idea being it should work as a drop-in replacement with little or no reconfiguration.
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As far as I can see, pamac hasn’t been updated in 2-5 years. How does Manjaro provide support for it and ensure security, for example, if it was (to the best of my knowledge) made by another developer?
Incorrect. You are confusing the GUI front-end with the library that powers it. The last update to libpamac was Dec 12, 2025:
❯ pamac info libpamac
Name : libpamac
Version : 11.7.4-4
Description : Library for Pamac package manager based on libalpm
URL : https://github.com/manjaro/libpamac
Licenses : GPL-3.0-or-later
Repository : extra
Installed Size : 4.0 MB
Groups : --
Depends On : appstream dbus-glib git glib2 json-glib libalpm.so=16
libsoup3 pacman-mirrors polkit
Optional Dependencies : --
Required By : manjaro-application-utility pamac-cli pamac-gtk3
Optional For : --
Provides : libpamac.so=11 pamac-common libpamac-appstream.so=11
libpamac-appstream-plugin libpamac-aur.so=11
libpamac-aur-plugin
Replaces : pamac-common
Conflicts With : libpamac-aur-plugin libpamac-appstream-plugin
Packager : Philip Mueller <philm@manjaro.org>
Build Date : Thu 18 Dec 2025 14:27:51
Install Date : Fri 19 Dec 2025 08:15:52
Install Reason : Installed as a dependency for another package
Validated By : Signature
Backup files : /etc/pamac.conf
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You can install it and test it, but there are many issues with it.
Fundamental issues as well as philosophical ones.
The theory behind it is interesting, but the implementation is that of a viral project. I would suggest you keep eyes on it, but do not think of it as a proper replacment.
Many of it’s updates are extreme, they will completely change how it works in very disruptive fashion.
Interestingly it also fails on another metric… Usability.
Scenario 1. Find ‘plexHTPC’:
- search the web and choose your poison.
- Load pamac and type it in, searches everywhere and finds flatpaks AUR and repository matches.
- Good luck trying this with Shelly, you have to explicitly select the correct tabs (for example, by default it will bring you to the ‘Install’ tab, so typing Plex in the search (which you must explicitly click to focus) does not find updates or installed software, you must change to the ‘Manage’ tab for that, in which case you can’t see installable matches.
Fundamentally this is wrong, as I might search Plex to find Plex-HTPC (Flatpak) and Plex-HTPC AUR and select to install the latter, removing the former… in the same view.
Next problem:
In your terminal, type ‘yay plex’ to get search results. Obviously you only enter admin rights when you choose to install, right?
Wrong.
With Shelly, you cannot do anything without giving admin rights:
Let’s be clear, this is NOT how Linux works - especially when using KDE Plasma.
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Is OP using GUI primarily?
I guess one can get used to GUI of Shelly as ignorant general user, but I don’t see any pros over pamac GUI…
I’d say OP should try using pamac and/or pacman in CLI, give it equal chance as Shelly…
I chose pamac and pacman CLI over shelly after giving genuine try.
Newcomers like me also have misconceptions like one needs terminal and programming knowledge to use CLI based tools and utilities, I only had to learn few commands and what they do, maybe that might also be the case…
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Ah, so you’ve actually tried it?
I see PLENTY of cons and at least one Pro…
For example, I tested the ‘Upgrade’ button… there’s no feedback for quite some time before a window pops up asking if yuou want to Upgrade All Packages? (no option to pick and choose, just Yes/No).
Then a non-functioning progress bar (about 1/4 the way across) showing the number 0% comes up for a minute before the next screen flashes up.
- It does take you to review pkgbuild diffs - nice addition.
After that the progress window showing now 1/4 bar, but the number 100%.
Strangely, the ‘Upgrade All’ button stays highlighted even when there aren’t any upgrades - it’s more than just a bit weird.
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yea, I did try GUI briefly, but couldn’t find anything good enough to keep using it… so I then moved towards trying the Shelly CLI, which also had a lot of UI issues, maybe they’re fixed since then…
But ultimately settled on pamac cli, pacman and now I’m also trying out yay (not really trying rn due to AUR issues, but it’s helpful as it asks if I wanna inspect pkgbuild)
The dependency graphs feature was nice, but I thought this should just be a standalone utility, and not good enough to use shelly GUI.
The AUR updates for shelly-bin, every other day were super annoying, so few weeks ago I just removed the thing completely from the system…
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The main reason for me was that I understood (incorrectly) that Pamac is no longer supported and outdated. Now I see that this is not the case. Yes, Shelly really is no match for Pamac, but as an experience and learning something new, it’s interesting. I understand everything, you explained everything perfectly.
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I still have it installed, I like to watch the updates roll in - they seem to ‘fix’ the UI by completely changing it nearly every update. It’s truly unique.
The dependency graphs was franky pretty useless, that only lasted a couple of weeks.
Yes - well Pamac-GUI has some issues, reports that it can crash/vanish but the updates continue in the background.
Hopefully it will see some love before too long, I still see it as a cornerstone of Manjaro… and it’s possibly the inspiration for Shelly which is actually built specifically for CachyOS despite being described as a manager for Arch…
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I use pamac for DETECTING and NOTIFYING of updates in GUI. I use it at the command line for checkupdates. I never use it either for the GUI or from the command line for large updates, pacman is better for those.
Shelley is interesting and I follow it, but I will not be ready to trust it for package management for at least a couple of more years, longer if it does not settle down with fewer issues and changes.
YMMV: but while I like the cutting edge I detest bleeding.
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Hmmm… Wouldn’t the option to skip some updates lead to the dreaded (and unsupported) partial-upgrade situation?
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More than likely.
Aha, yes of course. It is just really confusing to be honest, with so many buttons. Pamac’s a fair bit more intuitive.
I find it hard to understand why they couldn’t sit down and decide what they wanted to do, and then do that… instead of throwing together a hotchpotch and then try to manipulate it when they spot something wrong.
Not sure it can ever evolve into anything that looks nice or is easy to use…
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For the record, my preferences are for pacman and paru. I’m watching Shelly only out of academic interest.
My take is that they are used to developing only for their own use, or for a limited audience, say, internal corporate users. Developing for the wide and varied General Public is a much more demanding beast.
I give them points for incorporating feedback quickly. Integration with the existing UI is the hard part, and they’re having trouble with that. Which may be why they wipe the slate clean so frequently. Still, aren’t “iterate quickly” and “fail fast” two of the current mantras of developing any product?
Anyway, it’s the process I enjoy watching since I’m not in the target audience for the end product.
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Over at CachyOS they make it clear that they’re really catering for the newly captured Windows Gamer crowd.
Recently a thread about someone releasing a clone of VSCode to eliminate all need for entering text commands, putting everything into GUI form or something… just weird.
If they can’t type, why would they need VSCode?
Another thread stated how they hated the way ‘everything in Linux has to have a config file’. Obviously they’re rooting for a developer to implement a really advanced central preferences database. IDK, maybe they could call it the ‘registry’ or something 
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Oh, but they can type. Really, they can!
It’s the reading they’re having a problem with. 
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OK, that was well-deserving…
A monkey can type.
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