How ExeAtlas works
Every page on ExeAtlas is built from public, verifiable data. Here is where it comes from and what we do with it.
Last updated:
Sources
The core is the Windows Package Manager community repository (winget-pkgs), which lists versions, installer addresses, SHA256 hashes and install switches for more than ten thousand programs. We add download counts and tags from Chocolatey, entries from Scoop buckets, descriptions from Flathub, facts and logos from Wikidata, introductions from Wikipedia and project data from GitHub.
Updates
The winget data is refreshed every day, the other sources every week. A new version appears on the site within a day of being added to winget, together with its files, hashes and release notes, and older versions stay available on the version history page.
Checks
Before a new database goes live, automatic checks compare it with the previous one and stop the update if something looks broken. We test download addresses regularly and mark broken ones. Each file is shown with the SHA256 hash from the manifest, so you can verify what you downloaded.
Categories, ranking and alternatives
Apps are sorted into categories from their tags, their Chocolatey and Flathub categories and their Wikidata genre. Popularity combines Chocolatey downloads, GitHub stars, the number of releases and how many sources list the app. Alternatives are apps of the same category with the most tags in common. No publisher can pay for a better position.
Texts
Page texts are written for each language by people who speak it and filled in with the data above; they are not machine translations. Where a publisher provides its own description in your language, we show it.
Independence
ExeAtlas is not run by a software publisher and does not sell placements, reviews or ratings. If we ever show advertising or affiliate links, they will be labelled clearly and will not change the data or the ranking.