ArtCraft Launcher: One Installer for All 13 Craft Apps

The ArtCraft Launcher does three jobs and does them in one window. It lists every app in the Craft App Suite, shows which ones you already have and at what version, installs the build that matches your operating system and processor, and tells you when an update is out. The README describes it as one place to install, update and open every app in the suite, rebuilt in pure Rust, and that summary is accurate.

The design choice that matters is what it is not. The launcher is native egui, not Electron and not a web view, so it is a small desktop app that can live in the menu bar or the system tray. When you install an app through it, you get the project’s official package: the signed DMG on macOS, the MSI on Windows, the deb or rpm on Linux. The launcher is a front end for those releases, not a repackager with its own build pipeline, and it reads the same catalogue the ArtCraft GitHub repositories publish.

That matters for trust. A third-party installer that bundles its own binaries asks you to trust the bundler. The ArtCraft Launcher asks you to trust the hashes published in each GitHub release, and it checks the SHA-256 of the file it downloaded before it runs anything. The launcher can also find apps you installed by hand, so you do not have to reinstall to bring an existing setup under one roof.

Take the ArtCraft Launcher download from the project’s GitHub Releases page or from getartcraft.com. Version 0.5.1 publishes a macOS universal DMG at about 19.5 MB, Windows MSI and portable zip builds for x64, arm64 and x86 at roughly 9 MB each, and Linux packages as AppImage, deb, rpm, Flatpak and tar.gz for x64, arm64 and riscv64. There is a FreeBSD tar.gz as well. Every release ships SHA256SUMS.txt, so you can check the file before you open it.

The web build is a separate zip of about 4.3 MB, and this site hosts it so you can look at the catalogue without installing anything. That is the version we tested on Oct 18, 2026. Click the button at the top of this page and it opens in a new tab, unmodified and unbranded by us.

Once installed, the launcher keeps itself current. Our test build opened with a prompt saying a newer ArtCraft Launcher was available, with Later and Download buttons, which is the self-update path working as designed. If you prefer to control versions, download each release by hand using the ArtCraft download guide; the launcher will not force an update you have not accepted.

The install flow is the same for every app. Pick an app card, choose Install, and the launcher selects the right asset for your OS and CPU, downloads it, verifies it against the release checksums, and hands it to the system installer. On macOS that means copying a signed and notarised app bundle into Applications. On Windows it means running the MSI through Windows Installer, which also creates the Start menu and Apps and features entries.

Linux is where the details get interesting. With a deb or rpm package, the launcher uses apt, dnf or zypper and your system password prompt, and the app lands in /usr/bin with a desktop entry in /usr/share/applications. Without those package managers it falls back to a Flatpak, or an AppImage in ~/Applications. Inside the launcher’s own Flatpak sandbox, an app can live entirely in the launcher’s data folder with its settings in a home directory beside it, so nothing is installed on the host.

FreeBSD follows the same pattern with /usr/local and a polkit prompt, falling back to ~/.local when polkit is missing. The launcher also uninstalls and updates through the same mechanism, and it remembers what it installed so the version column stays accurate. None of this is exotic; the point is that the launcher does not invent an install location of its own. A launcher that guessed would be worse than no launcher at all.

Doing it by hand is not wrong. Each Craft app publishes its own release page with the same assets the launcher uses, and if you want to read every changelog before you upgrade, the manual path gives you that control. The launcher trades some of that control for a version table that is always current, one update button per app, and no hunting through thirteen repositories.

The trade is worth it when you run several apps. PhotoCraft, WordCraft, GridCraft and the rest ship on the same days, often several releases a week during this alpha period, and checking thirteen release pages is a chore nobody does consistently. The launcher turns that into one screen with an update badge, which is the difference between staying current and staying on a version from two weeks ago.

Doing it by hand is better when you need to pin a build. A studio that has validated a specific PhotoCraft release for a pipeline may not want an automatic bump, and the launcher’s update prompt is easy to decline. The honest summary is that the launcher is a convenience for people who want the latest and a mild nuisance for people who want the same version forever. Neither preference is unreasonable.

The ArtCraft Launcher web build is the same catalogue with the latest download for each app, and it is the version we point people at first. It does not install anything, because a browser tab cannot run an MSI, but it does answer the question people actually have: which version is current, and where is the download? For a quick check before you install the desktop launcher, that is enough.

Our test of the hosted build showed all thirteen apps with their current versions and release dates, a grid and a table view, a search box, a sort control by suite order, and a What’s new panel. The header carries links to each app’s website and GitHub repository, plus the launcher’s own Discord and download page. The footer reports when the catalogue was last checked, which is the detail that tells you whether the numbers are live.

The ArtCraft Launcher web build also surfaces the launcher’s own update. Our copy of the build opened with a banner saying a newer ArtCraft Launcher was available, which is the same self-update check the desktop app runs. If you are evaluating the launcher rather than the apps, start here: the launcher web build costs nothing, installs nothing, and shows you the whole catalogue in one screen. People also type art craft launcher with a space, and they still end up at the same catalogue.

Updates are the reason to keep the ArtCraft Launcher installed, and the launcher is the only component in the suite that checks every app for you. It checks each app’s GitHub releases, compares the installed version with the latest tag, and shows an update button when they differ. A notification tells you when something new has landed, and the update itself uses the same download and checksum path as a fresh install, so an update is never a different kind of operation from an install.

During the alpha period the cadence is fast. On Oct 18, 2026 alone, PhotoCraft moved to 0.10.0, WordCraft to 0.8.0, GridCraft to 0.8.0, DeckCraft to 0.8.0, CADCraft to 0.8.0, SoundCraft to 0.8.0 and FigCraft to 0.7.0, with smaller bumps across the rest. That is not a schedule you can follow by hand without missing releases, and it is exactly the workload the launcher was built for.

Two practical notes. First, updates replace the app in its normal install location, so anything you customised inside the bundle can be lost; keep presets outside it. Second, a failed update should leave the previous version in place, but check the app opens before you delete an older portable copy you were keeping as a fallback. That is ordinary caution, and an early-alpha suite deserves it.

The ArtCraft Launcher ships in more languages than most desktop utilities, and the launcher settings apply to the whole catalogue: English, Brazilian Portuguese, Czech, French, German, Hungarian, Japanese, Polish, Russian, Simplified Chinese and Spanish. Auto is the default and follows your system or browser language, and Settings then Language switches immediately and remembers the choice between runs. In the web build you can also force a language with a query string, such as ?lang=ru on the address.

The CJK languages use the system’s own fonts, which is why Simplified Chinese renders with PingFang on macOS, Microsoft YaHei on Windows and Noto Sans CJK on Linux. Where the system has no font for a language, the interface stays in English and Settings explains why, rather than showing empty boxes. Product names and release notes are left as published, and any string without a translation falls back to English.

The rest of the settings are unglamorous and useful: theme, sort order, search, and the update behaviour. There is no account, no telemetry dashboard and no licence key to enter. The launcher is a local tool that talks to GitHub, and the README describes it that way. If you are the person who sets up machines for other people, that is the configuration you want to copy.

The ArtCraft Launcher GitHub repository is storytold/craft-launcher, under the same organisation as the apps it installs. On our Oct 14, 2026 snapshot it showed 2,496 stars, a modest number next to PhotoCraft’s 59,605, which fits a utility that people install once and stop thinking about. The licence is MIT or Apache-2.0, and the README labels the project early alpha.

Releases are frequent and small. Version 0.5.1 on Oct 18, 2026 included text sharpening on the Windows launcher, a fix that preserves unrelated backup paths during updates, a corrected Flatpak link for Flatpak-installed copies, a new option to choose where Craft apps are installed, and catalogue numbering aligned with the suite. That list is typical: small fixes, no grand redesigns, shipped often.

If you are auditing the launcher, read the release notes rather than the star count. The notes name the contributors and the pull requests, so you can trace a fix to a change and a change to a person. That is more than most installers offer, and it is the practical meaning of open source for a tool that runs with installer privileges on your machine.

The launcher is early alpha, and the README says so. That means the occasional release can break an install path, a language string can be missing, and the interface can change between versions. A utility that touches your system installer deserves more caution than a web page, so keep one portable copy of the apps you depend on and do not update in the middle of a deadline. When a rollback is needed, the PhotoCraft download guide lists the per-platform packages.

The second launcher limit is scope. The launcher installs Craft apps and nothing else, and it depends on GitHub releases being reachable. Behind a corporate proxy or an air-gapped machine, the download step will fail and you will be back to manual packages. There is no offline copy in the launcher itself, and this guide will not pretend otherwise.

The third limit is trust, which no installer can solve for you. Installing through the launcher is the same act as installing the package yourself, with the same privileges and the same consequences. If you would not run an MSI from a repository you have not looked at, do not let a convenient button decide for you. Read the release, check the hash, then install, with the ArtCraft Launcher or without it.