Comparison with other tools

NSIS

The Nullsoft Scriptable Install System is a popular and fully fledged installation system. It works at a much higher level than kyla and supports the creation of shortcuts, has a scripting language, and creates self-extracting installations.

The main differences are:

  • kyla has native support for updating and updates only the required files - NSIS does not have built-in support for this.
  • NSIS is not designed for integration - it takes care of dialogs, for example - while kyla is.
  • NSIS does not support repairing or changing installations.
  • NSIS supports only Windows (the generated installers only support Windows) [1].

InnoSetup

InnoSetup is another popular Windows installation system. Similar to NSIS, it provides a high-level installation framework, and comes with it’s own scripting engine and even an IDE.

The main differences are:

  • kyla has native support for updating and updates only the required files - InnoSetup can update, but it is not aware which files have changed and which haven’t.
  • InnoSetup is not designed for integration - it takes care of dialogs, for example - while kyla is.
  • InnoSetup does not support repairing or changing installations.
  • InnoSetup supports only Windows.

Windows Installer

Windows Installer is also a fully fledged runtime for installations which is bundled with Windows. It is comparable with kyla as it also uses a database, but there are again many differences:

  • kyla can install directly from web, while the Windows Installer will download a package first before it starts installing [2].
  • Windows Installer does not support modern compression algorithms. Only cabinet files are supported.
  • Windows Installer cannot split a file when creating an installation media - very large files will result in very large packages. [3].
  • Windows Installer supports only Windows.

Footnotes

[1]From http://nsis.sourceforge.net/Features: Generated installer will still run on Windows only
[2]From https://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/aa368328(v=vs.85).aspx: If the installation database is at a URL, the installer downloads the database to a cache location before starting the installation.
[3]From http://www.joyofsetup.com/2011/06/21/wix-and-cabinetry/: On the flip side, any individual files that are larger than the maximum size go into a single-file cabinet, so it’s possible that such cabinets will be larger than the maximum size.