Robopack, Winget, PSADT — how I think about app packaging for Intune now
App packaging for Intune has always been a time sink. Robopack changes that calculation significantly. Here's how I'm thinking about the options in mid-2025.
App packaging has always been one of the less glamorous parts of an Intune deployment. Not technically difficult, but relentlessly time-consuming. Every application needs wrapping, testing, detection rules, a proper uninstall command, and ongoing maintenance as new versions ship.
The tooling options have evolved a lot, and a new one I started using earlier this year has genuinely changed my approach. Here's where I am now.
The current landscape
Robopack is an automated application packaging service I was introduced to a couple of months ago. It sits in a similar space to Patch My PC (it maintains a catalogue of pre-packaged applications and keeps them updated automatically) but the differences matter. The catalogue quality is higher, the Intune integration is cleaner, and the pricing is considerably more accessible. For MSPs and IT teams managing multiple tenants, the economics are compelling.
The core value proposition: applications in the Robopack catalogue are pre-packaged, tested, and updated automatically. You connect it to your Intune tenant, select the apps you want, and it handles deployment and ongoing version management. No IntuneWin wrapping, no detection rule writing, no chasing vendor release notes.
Winget (Windows Package Manager) is Microsoft's built-in package manager, available in Windows 10 21H2 and later. The public catalogue is large and growing. Deployment via Intune Win32 apps using Winget command lines is straightforward and well-documented.
PSADT (PowerShell App Deployment Toolkit) is the open-source framework that wraps installers in PowerShell, adding standardised logging, user notification dialogs, and reliable handling of edge cases. It's been the gold standard for complex, custom packaging work for years.
Plain IntuneWin wrapping: take the installer, wrap it with the Microsoft Win32 Content Prep Tool, deploy. The simplest approach for well-behaved MSIs.
Where Robopack earns its place
For applications in Robopack's catalogue, it's now my default. The value is in the maintenance, not just the initial deployment. The apps I'm deploying to customer tenants today I'll still be managing in two years, and every version update across a large application catalogue is real overhead.
With Patch My PC (which I used previously), the experience was acceptable but the pricing model felt heavy, particularly for smaller tenants where you're paying a lot per managed device for the convenience. Robopack's pricing is significantly more competitive, and the catalogue and integration quality are at least as good.
The caveat: Robopack's catalogue doesn't cover everything. Line-of-business applications, niche industry tools, internally developed software: none of those are in a managed catalogue. For those, you're still packaging manually.
Where Winget fits
Winget makes sense for commodity, publicly available software where the Winget catalogue has a reliable package: 7-Zip, VLC, Notepad++, that kind of thing. It's genuinely simple to deploy and self-maintaining if you set up detection properly.
The limitations are real though. You don't control the installation behaviour. Business-specific configuration can't be applied. Uninstallation reliability varies by package maintainer. For anything where you need to guarantee consistent, auditable behaviour across a managed fleet, Winget's reliance on the package maintainer is a risk.
I use Winget for simple, non-critical utilities where I trust the upstream package. I don't use it for anything business-critical.
Where PSADT still wins
PSADT is still my go-to for anything that requires real packaging work: applications with complex dependencies, pre/post-install tasks, registry changes, user notification during installation, or legacy installers with poor silent install support.
The logging alone justifies it for complex deployments. When something fails at 2am on a new device build, the PSADT log tells you exactly what happened at what step. That diagnostic value is worth the additional setup time.
My current decision tree
For a new Intune environment or a customer app catalogue review:
- Is it in Robopack's catalogue? Yes → use Robopack. Done.
- Is it a simple commodity tool in Winget? Yes → Winget deployment with proper detection.
- Is it a straightforward MSI with reliable silent install? Yes → plain IntuneWin wrap.
- Does it need custom packaging logic? Yes → PSADT.
The introduction of Robopack has meaningfully shrunk the scope of manual packaging work I'm doing. For the kinds of application catalogues I see in typical SMB and mid-market customers (30 to 80 applications, mostly commercial off-the-shelf), a substantial portion are now handled automatically. That's not a small thing.
