Install vcpkg with Homebrew, dnf, Nix, pacman, scoop

Project links

• Homepage
• Upstream docs
• Package manager page

Commands and aliases

• vcpkg

Project history

The public Microsoft/vcpkg repository was created on 2016-09-15, matching Microsoft's later description of the September 2022 release as vcpkg's sixth anniversary. Early vcpkg centered on a shared installed tree and simple commands for acquiring C++ libraries; the maintained registry became the main social and technical object, with contributors adding and updating port recipes.

By 2020, vcpkg's implementation was being separated into the Microsoft/vcpkg-tool repository, whose GitHub metadata describes it as the components of the vcpkg binary. That split reflects the project's maturation from a scripts-and-ports repository into a package manager with an independently released tool and a fast-moving registry.

Adoption history

Microsoft's C++ Team reported in October 2022 that vcpkg had passed 2,000 unique open-source libraries in its public registry, with over 10,000 available port versions, 95 contributors active during that release window, 4.8k forks, and 16.8k GitHub stars. On 2026-07-02, GitHub API metadata for Microsoft/vcpkg showed more than 27k stars and 7.6k forks, indicating continued adoption in the C++ tooling community.

The public vcpkg site describes a catalog of 2,849 open-source libraries, while Microsoft Learn material presents vcpkg as a free C/C++ package manager for acquiring and managing libraries and adding private libraries. The adoption story is therefore both public-registry growth and enterprise workflow growth: teams can pin baselines, use custom registries, and share binary caches in CI.

How it is used

Modern vcpkg use is usually manifest mode: projects commit a vcpkg.json file declaring direct dependencies and, when needed, a vcpkg-configuration.json file for registries and baselines. Microsoft Learn describes manifest mode as the recommended workflow for most users, while classic mode remains available for installing packages directly into a vcpkg tree.

Package users care about triplets because vcpkg packages are built for a target configuration rather than merely downloaded as opaque archives. CI-heavy users care about binary caching, which Microsoft documents as a way to persist vcpkg-built binaries across clean build agents, including GitHub Actions workflows.

Why package nerds care

vcpkg is significant because it treats C++ package management as a build-recipe and ABI problem instead of only a download problem. Ports can encode source retrieval and build steps, triplets encode target choices, manifests encode project dependencies, and baselines make dependency versions reviewable in source control.

For package maintainers, vcpkg also became a visible catalog of C and C++ library portability work. A working port is not just a version number; it is evidence that a library can be fetched, patched if necessary, configured, built, and tested across at least one supported target.

Timeline

• 2016-09-15: The Microsoft/vcpkg GitHub repository was created.
• 2020-12-08: The Microsoft/vcpkg-tool repository was created for the vcpkg binary components.
• 2022-10-06: Microsoft marked vcpkg's sixth anniversary and reported more than 2,000 unique libraries in the public registry.
• 2024: Microsoft Learn continued positioning manifest mode as the recommended workflow for most users.
• 2026-07-02: GitHub API metadata showed Microsoft/vcpkg with more than 27k stars and active pushes on the same day.

Related projects

• vcpkg is commonly compared with Conan, system package managers, language-specific package managers, and project-local vendoring. Its closest internal companion is vcpkg-tool, the repository for the compiled tool that works with the main ports registry.
• In CMake projects, vcpkg is often used through its toolchain integration, so its practical ecosystem overlaps heavily with CMake, MSBuild, Visual Studio, GitHub Actions, NuGet-style binary caches, and private source registries.

Sources

• https://api.github.com/repos/microsoft/vcpkg
• https://api.github.com/repos/microsoft/vcpkg-tool
• https://devblogs.microsoft.com/cppblog/vcpkg-september-2022-release-is-now-available-celebrating-6-years-with-over-2000-libraries/
• https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg
• https://github.com/microsoft/vcpkg-tool
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/vcpkg/concepts/manifest-mode
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/vcpkg/consume/classic-mode
• https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/vcpkg/users/binarycaching
• https://vcpkg.io/