Install aria2 with Homebrew, apk, chocolatey, apt, dnf, MacPorts, Nix, pacman, scoop, winget, zypper

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• aria2c

Project history

The project is maintained at github.com/aria2/aria2 and presents itself as an ultra-fast download utility. Its README and manual describe a mature 1.x project with a long-running monthly-minor release policy: minor releases are planned for the 15th of each month when there are changes, patch releases are reserved for security fixes, and the major version is intended to remain 1 for the time being.

aria2 grew around features that mattered to Unix download automation before every platform had polished GUI download managers: segmented HTTP/FTP transfers, BitTorrent support, Metalink checksums, proxy support, cookies, IPv6, daemon mode, and JSON-RPC/XML-RPC control. The manual also documents configuration-file and netrc support, making it practical as both an interactive downloader and a scripted service.

Adoption history

The supplied package facts show aria2 packaged across many ecosystems, including Homebrew, Debian/Ubuntu, Fedora, Arch, Alpine, Nix, MacPorts, Chocolatey, Scoop, Winget, and zypper. That breadth matches the tool's niche: it is portable enough for developer laptops, CI machines, servers, and Windows package collections.

aria2 is widely useful to package nerds because it can be a download backend rather than only a user-facing command. Its support for parallel sources, resume files, proxies, checksum-oriented Metalink workflows, and RPC control made it attractive wherever a package script or download manager wants more than a simple one-shot HTTP fetch.

How it is used

The executable is aria2c. Typical use is direct CLI fetching, batch input files, BitTorrent/Metalink downloads, or running aria2 as a daemon controlled through RPC. The official manual documents ~/.aria2/aria2.conf and $XDG_CONFIG_HOME/aria2/aria2.conf as configuration paths, and ~/.netrc as the default netrc credential file.

Common package-manager usage is to install aria2 as a smarter downloader for large assets, flaky mirrors, torrents, or Metalink-enabled distributions. Because options can be placed in a config file, users can set split counts, proxy behavior, download directories, RPC settings, and authentication defaults without rewriting every command line.

Why package nerds care

aria2 matters because it compresses several downloader roles into one packageable CLI. It is small enough to be a dependency, scriptable enough for automation, and featureful enough to replace ad hoc combinations of curl, wget, torrent clients, and checksum wrappers in many workflows.

Its Metalink and segmented-transfer support are especially package-nerdy: mirrors, chunk checksums, resume state, and bandwidth utilization are the kinds of concerns that appear when downloading operating-system images, language toolchains, release archives, and large binary artifacts.

Timeline

• 2015: Official GitHub release entries show active 1.x releases such as release-1.19.x.
• 2016-2017: Official release entries show a regular 1.x cadence through releases such as 1.20.0 through 1.33.1.
• 2026: The current README still documents the 1.x versioning policy and the official manual remains the primary user documentation.

Related projects

• Related tools include curl and wget for HTTP-style fetching, BitTorrent clients for swarm downloads, Metalink-aware distribution download workflows, and RPC-controlled download managers.
• aria2 also overlaps with package-manager fetch backends because it can resume, split, proxy, authenticate, and validate downloads from one CLI.

Sources

• https://aria2.github.io/manual/en/html/aria2c.html
• https://github.com/aria2/aria2/releases
• https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aria2/aria2/master/README.rst
• input.source_facts.package-manager