Skip to content

Getting started

Start tutorial Discussion forum

Hydraulic Conveyor makes distributing desktop and command line apps as easy as shipping a web app. It's a tool not a service, it generates and signs self-upgrading packages for Windows, macOS and Linux using each platform's native package formats without requiring you to have those operating systems, and it looks like this:

It's free for open source apps and has simple per-project pricing for commercial apps.

Features

  • Self-updating packages for every OS, built on any OS.
    • Build applications that use the built-in Windows MSIX package manager.
      • Windows keeps them up to date in the background.
      • Installs and updates reuse data blocks and hard link files, even between apps from different vendors.
      • Has everything IT departments need to easily deploy to managed networks.
    • Build Mac applications that automatically use the popular Sparkle 2 update framework, without code changes.
    • Build apt repositories for Debian/Ubuntu, tarballs for other distros. Integrates with systemd for servers and cron jobs.
  • Background updates or check-on-launch.
    • In aggressive mode your app will check for and apply updates on every launch, without user interaction being required.
    • In background mode updates will be downloaded and applied in the background, without disturbing the user.
  • Support for Electron apps.
    • Benefit from well maintained platform native software updates without relying on Squirrel or any centralized update servers.
    • Import config directly from your package.json file.
  • Support for JVM apps.
    • Bundles a JVM from a vendor of your choice, and then uses jlink/jdeps to minimize the size.
    • Uses a native launcher that adds useful features.
    • Import configuration from Maven and Gradle.
  • Automatic icon conversion.
    • Supply a set of PNGs and Conveyor turns them into the platform specific formats for you.
  • Generates download sites.
  • Brainless code signing.
    • Sign your Windows/Mac downloads for a better UX, or ignore it and get self-signed packages with a curl | bash style install.
    • You can sign and notarize on any OS.
    • You can back up your single root key by writing it down as words on paper.
  • Pre-made template projects for native C++, Electron, JavaFX (JVM) and Jetpack Compose Desktop (JVM).
  • Pierce the abstraction! Cross-platform tooling doesn't mean giving up platform-specific features. Over 120 different settings let you precisely configure your packages, including your:
    • Mac Info.plist files.
    • Windows manifests.
    • Linux .desktop files and package install/uninstall scripts.
  • No lockin. You can stop using Conveyor at any time.
    • It makes standard formats and uses standard or open source update frameworks.
    • To stop using it you can just write the scripts and integrations you'd have written anyway.

Try sample apps that use Conveyor

Compose Multiplatform

Download Eton Notes (fully signed)

Download Eton Notes (self signed)


Eton Notes is an open source example app written in Kotlin. It uses Material Design and the Jetpack Compose reactive UI toolkit, which is the new standard Android GUI toolkit and also has a desktop port supported by JetBrains.

AtlantaFX Sampler

Download AtlantaFX sampler

AtlantaFX is an open source theme for JavaFX that implements a modern design language using the GitHub Primer color system. The sampler app provides a gallery of the available controls and stylings. It's written in Java with Maven. Read the blog post to learn how this app was packaged.