Long time linux user and I have a hard time keeping track of the differences between these 3 tech. This comparison did not help much. I can only imagine how lost people with less experience must feel.

Comparing AppImages to Flatpaks is a bit of a stretch.

AppImages are completely different thing versus Flatpak and Snap.

I use flatpak and app images for different uses.

App images are like portable exe files for onetime use apps. Like Rufus

Flatpaks are like installable exes from the devs website. Used for apps I want to used and use again on my machine.

I like both flatpaks and appimages why does everything have to be a victory and defeat

what are snaps? - me a linux mint user

~~Afaik snaps are (or should be) actually better in theory~~, but unfortunately its backend is proprietary.

edit: nope, outdated info

app images need to not be called app images. first time seeing it it sounds like some macos thing. but even still I don't see why they get compared so much to flatpak and snap when they are completely different.

I fucking love appimages. I dont have any issues with Flatpak. I just like appimages more and i can get them for almost all of my stuff. So idk if flatpaks won. But i also dont care.

I used to hate AppImages until I had Snap forced on me. Then i thought AppImages weren't so bad and I fled Snap by running straight into the arms of Flatpak

I prefer appimages, it feels much more "open" than flatpak ever will.

Flatpak: install flatpost and flatseal.

Appimage: Download appimaged appimage to ~\Applications and run once.

then

Flatpak: Go to site for cool software I heard of, see it's flatpak with a link on the page. Click link, wait for flatpost to open, wait for flatpost to update repos, get cool software and possibly another copy of mesa and gnome compat stuff, then head to flatseal to fix drive/device permissions as needed.

Appimage: Go to site for cool software I heard of, see it's an appimage, download said appimage to ~\Applications, appimaged automatically loads in a desktop entry and we're done.

As far as updates, all the appimages that are in active development that I use, offer auto-updating when I open them, plus I'm not reliant on a centrally-controlled repo of the packages (which if it dies, takes all updates with it).

I feel appimage would be an easier adoption for people fresh to linux, as it follows the same model as windows or macos (download executable, install app), even for the initial setup of appimaged.

And either way, there's no "winner" here, if we're playing that game, native installs still win. Every distro supports (and uses) those by default, except for ubuntu, who has money on pushing snaps.

I don't think Flatpak "won". Flatpak makes sense for it's use, but AppImages also make sense for other uses, and even Snap has it's place.

It just happens that Flatpak has become the more "popular" method on many desktop Linux set ups, as Flathub integrates well into software stores and the shared dependencies can be more efficient (if you use a lot of Flatpaks).

AppImages are great for self contained portable apps with minimal local dependencies needed, and especially if something is pretty much "feature complete". They aren't quite as convenient in terms of keeping them updated or integrating into desktop environments seamlessly (they can be if you visit AppImageHub and install the AppImageLauncher - doesn't work for me thought - but even then they're not really as well integrated into desktop environments as Flatpaks have become).

If you were to use lots of programmes, AppImages would potentially take up more space than the same apps in a Flatpak setup because AppImages do not share dependencies while Flatpaks can (if dependencies are the same version). But AppImages are also ultraportable and can run on an even broader range of distros and setups than Flatpaks. AppImages don't require any installed tool locally to run, while Flatpaks need Flatpak installed. Both Flatpak and AppImage are bloaty compared to direct installs from a distros repos, but thats a trade off for their benefits (containerised, easily deployable across different distros etc).

Snap is proprietary particularly around snapd's hardcoded dependence on Canonical servers despite being otherwise open source. So it's not really been embraced by most distros outside the Ubuntu ecosystem, and even then there are Ubuntu derived distros that deliberately remove Snap. Snap does have its strengths in the server space (which Flatpak is not designed ofr), but Docker is the more popular system for this. Snap is still used "widely" in the sense that Ubuntu is widely used and Snap is its default, but outside that ecosystem Docker is much more extensively used (and probably on a lot of Ubuntu servers too). Snap in the desktop set up is also slower than Flatpak due to how it works, which adds to the perception they're "worse". Still Snap is convenient in the Ubuntu server space for deploying software.

Flatpak and AppImages aren't going anywhere. Who knows with Snap; probably not going anywhere?