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

Project links

• Homepage
• Repository
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• htsserver
• httrack
• proxytrack
• webhttrack

Project history

Xavier Roche identifies May 1998 as the date of the first HTTrack release, initially as binaries. The official site footer and project pages also tie the project lineage to 1998, making it much older than the GitHub repository that later became the official source-control mirror.

The official manual describes the core command as `httrack`: an offline browser that copies websites to a local directory. The documentation family also includes WinHTTrack and WebHTTrack, GUI front ends for Windows and Linux/Unix, while the package exposes command-line tools such as httrack, htsserver, proxytrack, and webhttrack.

The release history shows the maintenance pattern of an old network utility: parser fixes, cache/update fixes, Windows and Unix portability work, Unicode filename handling, IDNA/punycode support, OpenSSL and zlib updates, security fixes, Android support, and many packaging/build updates.

Adoption history

HTTrack became a standard package because website mirroring is a durable need: offline browsing, site preservation, testing, and local copies of documentation all predate modern web archiving services. Its official docs emphasize browsing a mirrored site locally as if it were online and updating an existing mirror rather than starting from scratch.

The input metadata lists HTTrack across many package managers, including Homebrew, Debian, Ubuntu, Fedora/DNF, Arch, Alpine, MacPorts, Nix, Scoop, Chocolatey, and Zypper. That breadth matches the project's long cross-platform history and its command-line-plus-GUI split.

How it is used

The man page documents mirroring one or more URLs with filters, output paths, depth limits, proxy options, cache/update controls, rate limits, retries, user agents, cookies, robots handling, and logging. Common workflows include creating a mirror, updating a mirror, continuing an interrupted mirror, or using the interactive mode.

HTTrack is powerful enough to be misused as an aggressive crawler, and the official docs include a 'How not to Use' section. For package users, that makes it both a practical offline browser and a tool that requires care around bandwidth, robots rules, and site-owner expectations.

Why package nerds care

HTTrack is package-nerd significant because it is one of the classic website mirroring utilities that survived from the late-1990s web into modern package managers. It carries old-school Unix command-line depth, GUI wrappers, and decades of portability fixes in one package.

Its history file reads like an archaeology layer of web-client problems: JavaScript link extraction, cookies, DNS cache crashes, long Windows paths, Unicode filenames, IDNA, OpenSSL transitions, CVEs, Android portability, browser integration, and package build failures. Few small CLI packages expose such a long operational history of the web changing underneath them.

Timeline

• 1998: First HTTrack release, initially as binaries, according to Xavier Roche on the official forum.
• 2007: Official documentation pages describe HTTrack as an open source offline browser with command-line and GUI documentation.
• 2012: Official HTML man page generated for the httrack command.
• 2013: Official blog describes the first Android release and notes that the engine is pure C.
• 2015: Official GitHub repository created as xroche/httrack.
• 2026: Release history includes 3.49-series security, packaging, and build fixes.

Related projects

• WinHTTrack and WebHTTrack are GUI front ends documented by the HTTrack site.
• wget and curl occupy neighboring download-tool territory, but HTTrack specializes in recursive website mirroring with link rewriting.
• webhttrack, htsserver, and proxytrack are companion executables shipped by the package.
• The official Android port reused the HTTrack engine in a mobile GUI context.

Sources

• GitHub repository metadata supplies the official repository URL and source-control mirror creation date.
• Input package-manager metadata supports broad package-manager adoption.
• Official forum reply by Xavier Roche supplies the May 1998 first-release date.
• Official overview and man pages supply the offline-browser purpose, local mirroring behavior, update/resume behavior, and CLI option scope.
• Official release history supplies long-term maintenance themes and security/build fixes.