“Bitrock’s InstallBuilder and Macrovision’s Install Anywhere Enterprise edition are tools for building third-party software installers. InstallBuilder uses Qt widgets, while Install Anywhere requires a Java Virtual Machine, but both are cross-platform, multi-lingual, proprietary tools that are available in downloadable demos. Both, too require minimal expertise to use. When run in wizard mode, Install Anywhere is more basic than InstallBuilder and suffers in comparison, but, when run in Advanced Designer mode, it eclipses its rival with a huge set of options.”
We need a strong cross platform installer.
I don’t care to deal with proprietary installers, it can be too hard to extend them when you have something non-standard to do during install.
I’d love to see InnoSetup in a cross platform package, or something as strong as Inno available for Windows/Linux and MacOS.
If you are stuck on windows and need a powerful ‘windows only’ solution, check out Inno (its good enough for many commercial companies)
http://www.jrsoftware.org/isinfo.php
Edited 2007-01-19 21:55
How do these compare to the Nullsoft Scriptable Install System ( http://nsis.sourceforge.net/ )?
Since both of them are proprietary, I don’t think I will switch, but I am still curious.
NSIS is a great, incredibly customizable and lightweight tool, but Windows only. The key differentiation of InstallBuilder and InstallAnywhere are that they are multiplatform (that is, run on Windows, Mac, Solaris, etc.) not only Windows.
As you mention, BitRock is proprietary, but we offer free licenses to open source projects. We also have other products, such as easy to install LAMP stacks ( http://bitrock.com/download_webstacks_download.html ), that are completely open source.
Nothing about Install Jammer : http://www.installjammer.com/
It’s an open source multi os setup builder.
Beware of InstallAnywhere on Linux. If you are missing a library or two, it fails with cryptic error messages. Especially in headless server environments.
I feel your pain
Earlier experiences like this with another Java installer, InstallShield Multiplatform (now defunct), was that prompted us to build BitRock InstallBuilder.
The main problem was that earlier versions of InstallAnywhere/ISMP required an X-Window environment to run, and if it was not present (or not DISPLAY variable was set) it would not say something like “GUI mode not available” but rather give you several pages of a AWT Java stack trace, leaving our customers at the time completely confused (and calling and emailing us in turn).