[Guide] What is the Difference Between an Offline and Online Installer?

In this article, we’ll try to compare Online Installers with Offline Installers. We often talk about standalone offline installers for web browsers and other software programs and many readers ask us what is an online/offline installer? What is the difference between an offline and online installer? So today we decided to create a separate article to post a comparison of both the installers.

If you are also confused between online and offline installers and can’t decide which installer is best for you, this article will help you.

Let’s start online installer vs offline installer guide:

What is an Online Installer?

Online installer is also known as Web Installer, Stub installer or Net Installer. Most of the software companies prefer to provide an online installer of their software to public.

Online installer is very small in size approx. 2-3 MB because it doesn’t contain all required setup files to install the software. When you run online installer, it requires a working Internet connection to download the required program files of the software from the server.

Since online installer needs to download setup files from the server, you’ll need a high-speed Internet connection so that the installer can finish downloading setup files quickly. If you have a slow Internet connection, you’ll need to wait for a few minutes or hours until the installer completes downloading files from the server.

Online installer always downloads latest setup files from the server so whenever you run online installer of a software program, you’ll get the latest version of the software installed in your computer system.

Advantages of Online Installer:

• Very small in size
• Always provides the latest released version of the software.
• Checks the system hardware and downloads the appropriate (compatible) version of the software e.g. 64-bit (x64) or 32-bit (x86).

Disadvantages of Online Installer:

• Requires Internet connection. Without Internet connection, you can’t install the software using an online installer.
• Takes more time in installation as it needs to download setup files from server.
• If you are going to use online installer in multiple devices, you’ll need working Internet connection in each device which will waste your time and Internet connection bandwidth in downloading the same software in all devices.

What is an Offline Installer?

Offline Installer is also known as full standalone installer. Although most of the companies prefer to provide online installers to public, they also provide full offline installers for advanced users and system administrators.

Offline installer contains full setup files of the software program which makes the offline installer larger in size.

Since offline installer comes with all required files, it doesn’t need Internet connection at installation time. You can install the software using offline installer without any need of working Internet connection.

Offline installer can be easily used in multiple devices to install the software as you’ll not need Internet connection to download setup files separately.

Advantages of Offline Installer:

• Doesn’t require Internet connection.
• Takes less time in installation as it doesn’t need to download any file.
• You can use offline installer in multiple computers to install the software program easily.

Disadvantages of Offline Installer:

• A little bit larger in size.
• Always installs the same version of the software which was bundled with the offline installer. If you want to install the latest released version in future, you’ll need to download the new offline installer again.

Now things are clear. If you need to install a software program in many devices and you don’t want to waste your time and Internet connection bandwidth, Offline Installer is best for you. But if you have a single computer system and always want to install latest version of the software and you also have high-speed Internet connection, you should go with the Online Installer.

PS: Following articles will help you in downloading offline installers of popular software:

Download Google Chrome Full Standalone Offline Installer

Download Mozilla Firefox Full Standalone Offline Installer

Download Microsoft Edge Full Standalone Offline Installer

Download Opera Full Standalone Offline Installer

Download Opera GX (Gaming Browser) Full Standalone Offline Installer

[Tip] Get Direct Download Links of Windows 10 Offline ISO Files from Microsoft