The developers of the OpenWrt distribution, focused on use in various network devices such as routers, switches, and access points, have announced a switch to the APK package manager, developed by the Alpine project. In the November snapshots created from the developing main branch of OpenWrt, the previously used opkg package manager has already been replaced with the apk toolkit.
The testing branch of OpenWrt 24.10 is still using opkg for now, but will soon transition to APK (OpenWrt 24.10 will be the first release based on APK). The stable branch of OpenWrt 23.05 will continue to use opkg until its support period ends. After the migration to the new package manager is completed, opkg will be classified as deprecated and will no longer be developed as part of the OpenWrt project. The switch to APK will enhance package management capabilities and will lead to changes in how packages are installed and managed.
APK, by default (unless the "--allow-untrusted" option is specified), requires valid digital signatures for all packages, whereas opkg does not verify locally installed packages. Some opkg operations that required running different commands can be reduced to one command in apk (for example, it is no longer necessary to separately update the repository information cache; instead of "opkg update && opkg install dnsmasq-full", you can run "apk --update-cache add dnsmasq-full"). Among the advanced features of APK, there is the command "apk list --installed --orphaned", which allows you to view all unused dependencies that can be safely removed without affecting the system.
Comparison of some apk and opkg commands for performing typical actions:
Source: opennet.ru
