NSIS
Installer builder in Developer tools
Free Windows installer builder that people recommend for reliable silent installs, good compression and easy scripting, and it is still supported after two decades.
Free Windows installer builder that people recommend for reliable silent installs, good compression and easy scripting, and it is still supported after two decades.
12 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 12
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 3 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: not recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: not recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 12 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 3 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, not met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Silent, reliable installs across Windows
“I figured out what registry keys the .exe needed and created a NSIS installer that could be run silently, quickly, and remotely - fun stuff.”
Comment from 11 May 2026 in “Nullsoft, 1997-2004 AOL kills off the last maverick tech company (2004)” “NDIS is extremely elegant and runs on just about every windows version”
Comment from 12 May 2026 in “Nullsoft, 1997-2004 AOL kills off the last maverick tech company (2004)” “has somehow just-worked for decades”
Comment from 4 Jul 2026 in “MSI Center – How to gain SYSTEM privileges in seconds” Still supported and widely used
“Yep, NSIS is awesome and my team is still using it to package Windows builds of at least two apps.”
Comment from 11 May 2026 in “Nullsoft, 1997-2004 AOL kills off the last maverick tech company (2004)” “It was quite the fun experience and I'm pleasantly surprised that NSIS is supported to this day”
Comment from 11 May 2026 in “Nullsoft, 1997-2004 AOL kills off the last maverick tech company (2004)” “its still 20 years later one of the most sane and popular ways of distributing apps”
Comment from 5 Jan 2026 in “Why Microsoft Store Discontinued Support for Office Apps” Simple and easy to use
“I worked with both Installshield and NSIS and vastly prefered the latter, it just got the job done.”
Comment from 11 May 2026 in “Nullsoft, 1997-2004 AOL kills off the last maverick tech company (2004)” “simple tooling that makes NSIS/InnoSetup/etc shockingly easy to use”
Comment from 4 Jul 2026 in “MSI Center – How to gain SYSTEM privileges in seconds”
What people recommend instead
The same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
| Product | Recommend | Criticize | Approval | Months | Owned | Badge |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| NSISThis page | 12 | 0 | 100% | 3 | — | — |
| jpackage | 7 | 6 | 54% | 5 | — | — |
What people said
10 of the 12 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“simple tooling that makes NSIS/InnoSetup/etc shockingly easy to use”
“has somehow just-worked for decades”
“NDIS is extremely elegant and runs on just about every windows version”
“the performance and compression advantages of NSIS were so great that it was a clear choice”
“I would personally use NSIS for small stuff.”
“I figured out what registry keys the .exe needed and created a NSIS installer that could be run silently, quickly, and remotely - fun stuff.”
“Yep, NSIS is awesome and my team is still using it to package Windows builds of at least two apps.”
“I worked with both Installshield and NSIS and vastly prefered the latter, it just got the job done.”
“It was quite the fun experience and I'm pleasantly surprised that NSIS is supported to this day”
“its still 20 years later one of the most sane and popular ways of distributing apps”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.