WowUp: one addon updater for every World of Warcraft client

The problem with keeping several game installs in sync

WowUp is described as the community centered World of Warcraft addon updater, with the goal of bringing the addon community together in an easy to use updater application. The problem it addresses is mundane but real. A player with more than one World of Warcraft installation, retail and classic and a test realm for instance, has to keep the Interface folder of each in step with the addons they actually use, and the addons themselves come from several different places.

The feature list is short enough to check against your own situation. Support for all major addon sources, so you are not running one updater per source. Discover or find new addons across addon sources, which is a search problem as much as an update problem. Handle all your different World of Warcraft clients, so one installation of the updater covers several game folders. Auto updates, so the addons refresh without you opening a browser. And a companion addon, which lives in its own repository at WowUp/WowUp.Addon.

That last piece is the interesting design decision. The companion addon puts the updater inside the game client, so the update experience happens where the player already is rather than in a separate application window, while the desktop application remains the place where sources, clients and settings are managed.

The primary language is TypeScript, the licence is GPL-3.0, and the client runs on Windows, Mac and Linux with CurseForge support.

Two products: the Wago build and the CurseForge build

WowUp ships in two variants, and the Windows package manager commands are where the difference becomes concrete.

The README documents installing WowUp with Wago:

winget install wowup.wowup

and WowUp with CurseForge:

winget install wowup.cf

Two identifiers, two products, and the distinction is the addon source the updater is wired to. WinGet ships with Windows 10 and 11, which makes it the lowest friction install path for most people, and the two package identifiers are the only difference in the command.

This is also the clearest sign that WowUp is not a single point of truth for addon distribution. It is a client for other people's repositories, and it has to be built against each one, which explains why there are separate builds rather than a single application with a toggle for the source.

CurseForge is the one the README calls out in the project description itself, describing the repository as the WowUp client with CurseForge support for Windows, Mac and Linux, so the CurseForge variant is the primary target of this repository.

There is also a deprecated companion project, the WowUpUpdater, listed under related projects alongside the companion addon. It has been superseded, so anyone arriving from an old install guide should move to the current client rather than the updater.

Installing from wowup.io, GitHub betas or Chocolatey

There are four documented routes, and they differ in what you get.

The latest release is always on the project website at wowup.io. That is the stable channel, and it is the one the README points at first.

Beta builds are published on the GitHub releases page, and the README frames those as the way to help test the latest changes. This is a real split between channels rather than a stale copy of the same build, so a tester and a normal user can be on different code without either being wrong.

On Windows, WinGet is the community support alternative, since it ships with Windows 10 and 11, and the two identifiers are given above.

On any platform with Chocolatey, the package manager route is:

choco install wowup

Chocolatey is described as installing the latest version, which makes it the simplest one line option on a Mac or Linux system that already has it.

What the README does not do is document building from source. The repository contains the application source, a CONTRIBUTING.md with a contribution guide, and a .githooks directory, but there is no documented build and run sequence in the README itself, so a contributor needs the contribution guide rather than the readme to get a working development environment.

The repository splits into an Electron shell and a shared library

The top level of the repository shows the architecture in two directories: wowup-electron and wowup-lib. The split follows the usual Electron pattern, a shell that owns the window and the application lifecycle, and a library package that holds the logic that could be reused or tested independently of the desktop shell.

Around those two directories sit the files you would expect in a project of this kind. CLAUDE.md and a .claude directory at the root suggest the project expects automated agents to work on it, .vscode carries editor settings, .githooks holds the git hooks that enforce commit conventions, and there are .github workflows for the release and CI pipelines that publish those GitHub beta builds. SECURITY.md and CODE_OF_CONDUCT.md handle the two policy documents a project with a user base and a Discord presence needs, and creicns.sh sits at the root as a maintenance script.

The application also depends on two external services that the README makes explicit. Addons come from the addon sources rather than from the project itself, and updates are pushed to the client by the platform, since auto updates are one of the listed features.

The release cadence visible in the tags matches the two channel story. v2.24.0 shipped on 2026-10-10, then v2.24.1-beta.1 on 2026-10-14 and v2.24.1-beta.3 on 2026-10-18. A stable release followed by two beta tags of the same patch line within a week is a project iterating quickly and testing in the open.

Auto updates, the companion addon and where the project draws its limits

Auto updates are the feature that justifies the application existing at all, and they are worth thinking about as a mechanism rather than a checkbox. The updater watches the addon sources, compares what is installed against what is available, and pulls the difference into the Interface folder of whichever game client you selected. The per client handling is what makes it useful to a player with more than one installation, since each client has its own addon version and its own set of compatible releases.

The companion addon extends that into the game client itself, so the player can act on the update without leaving the game. The README lists it as a feature in its own right and links it to the separate WowUp/WowUp.Addon repository, which means it is versioned and maintained on its own schedule rather than shipped inside the desktop app.

Two limits are visible in the documentation. The first is that this is a client for other people's addon repositories, so its usefulness is bounded by how well the addon sources expose their catalogues, and the two separate builds are a direct consequence of that dependency. The second is that the README promises an ever growing list of supported features without enumerating what is already supported, so a prospective user has to read the source or the issue tracker to learn which sources and which clients are covered today.

The project also depends on the platform to deliver updates to the application itself. The stable build lives on wowup.io and the betas on GitHub releases, so there is no single package that carries both, and the community package manager routes point at the same two products rather than adding a third channel.

GPL-3.0, an active release line and a company behind it

The licence is GNU General Public License v3.0, and the README carries a copyright line for WowUp LLC with all rights reserved, which is the usual combination for a company sponsored open source client: the code is copyleft and the trademark and the company behind it are not.

That distinction is worth keeping in mind if you plan to redistribute. A build of WowUp carries GPL-3.0 obligations, while the name and the publishing arrangements belong to WowUp LLC.

The last push was on 2026-10-19, so the repository is being worked on right up to the present, and the tag sequence shows a 2.24 line in active development with beta builds following the stable 2.24.0. Contributors are asked to read the contribution guide in CONTRIBUTING.md before submitting anything, and the project says contributions are welcome from translations to feature pull requests, which is a useful signal about where a new contributor can add value.

Communication channels are split between GitHub issues for bugs and feature requests and a Discord server for questions, and the code of conduct applies to both. Support also runs through a Patreon page for the maintainer, which is a reasonable signal of how a desktop application with server side updates and a Discord community is funded.

The main upgrade cost for a user is therefore low, since a new build replaces the old one through the normal update path. The cost lands on anyone who wants to modify the client, who inherits GPL-3.0 and the Electron build toolchain that comes with it.

Editorial conclusion

WowUp fits a player or addon author who juggles more than one World of Warcraft installation and wants one updater that handles several addon sources across Windows, Mac and Linux. It does not fit someone who needs a minimal, single purpose installer or who wants to avoid Electron on their gaming machine. Verify first which product you want, since the Windows package manager identifiers are separate for the Wago build and the CurseForge build, and decide whether you want the stable build from wowup.io or the beta builds published on GitHub.

Frequently asked questions

Official sources

1. Issues
2. License: GPL-3.0
3. README
4. Releases
5. WowUp/WowUp on GitHub