What’s New in vcpkg (Oct 2026)

This blog post summarizes changes to the vcpkg package manager as part of the 2026-10-16 registry release and the 2026-09-26 tool release. These updates include configurable binary-cache compression, improved cache reliability and diagnostics, Boost 1.92, and other improvements and bug fixes.

• There are now 2,877 total ports available in the vcpkg curated registry. A port is a versioned recipe for building a package from source, such as a C or C++ library.
• 41 new ports were added to the curated registry since the July registry release.
• 806 ports were updated between the July and October registry releases. As always, we validate each change to a port by building all other ports that depend on or are depended by the library that is being updated for our main triplets.
• 178 community contributors submitted merged PRs included in this release.
• The main vcpkg repo has approximately 7,800 forks and 27,600 stars on GitHub.

vcpkg changelog (2026.10.16 release)

Tool improvements

• Choose your binary-cache compression level. Use --binary-cache-compression-level=<0-9> or VCPKG_BINARY_CACHE_COMPRESSION_LEVEL to trade ZIP archive size for cache submission time. The command-line option takes precedence. Leaving both unset preserves the default compression level, and the setting does not change package ABIs or prevent restoration of existing archives. NuGet packaging is unaffected (PR: Microsoft/vcpkg-tool#2125, thanks @xiaozhuai!). For example, select a lower compression level when saving ZIP-based binary-cache archives: vcpkg install --binary-cache-compression-level=1
• Fixed binary cache prechecks assigning provider results to the wrong packages after filtering the action list, improving cache availability reporting (PR: Microsoft/vcpkg-tool#2112, thanks @miyanyan!).
• Standardized binary cache upload failure diagnostics to make cache submission problems easier to identify (PR: Microsoft/vcpkg-tool#2105, thanks @xiaozhuai!).
• Preserved underlying registry errors instead of replacing them with a misleading “<port> does not exist” message (PR: Microsoft/vcpkg-tool#2095, thanks @bugale!).
• Added the apple platform expression for port metadata, allowing one expression to cover Apple target platforms (PR: Microsoft/vcpkg-tool#2121, thanks @cqundefine!).
• Propagated VCPKG_SSL_REVOKE_BEST_EFFORT to spawned processes so the certificate-revocation setting applies consistently (PR: Microsoft/vcpkg-tool#2098, thanks @mem16k!).
• Improved Windows bootstrap proxy handling: if malformed HTTPS_PROXY or NO_PROXY settings cause an invalid parameter error, the helper warns and retries using the current user’s explicit Windows proxy settings, or a direct connection if none is configured (PR: Microsoft/vcpkg-tool#2137, thanks @camillebruckmann!).
• Fixed NuGet exports to include vcpkg.exe in the generated package (PR: Microsoft/vcpkg-tool#2134).
• Made x-add-version updates transactional so an error does not leave partially updated version metadata, while also reducing unnecessary work when processing unchanged ports (PR: Microsoft/vcpkg-tool#2050).

Notable port updates

• Boost: 1.91.0 -> 1.92.0, updating the Boost collection of C++ libraries.
• curl: 8.21.0#1 -> 8.23.0, updating a widely used networking library.
• OpenSSL: 3.6.3 -> 3.6.5#2, refreshing the cryptography and TLS dependency.
• libgit2: 1.9.4#1 -> 1.9.7, updating the Git implementation library.
• Qt Base: 6.11.1#1 -> 6.11.2, updating the core Qt framework port.
• Vulkan SDK components: 1.4.350.0 -> 1.4.357.0, with Vulkan headers updated from 1.4.350.1 -> 1.4.363.0.
• Armadillo: 14.4.1#1 -> 15.6.1, bringing a new major version of the linear algebra library.
• SDL 3: 3.4.12 -> 3.4.18, updating the cross-platform multimedia library.
• 22 ports were removed as part of registry maintenance: cppdap, ctp, dx, keccak-tiny, kf5diagram, libfreenect2, qtquickcontrols2, rapidfuzz, sdl1, sdl1-mixer, sdl1-net, septag-sx, shiftmedia-libgnutls, sqlpp11-connector-mysql, sqlpp11-connector-sqlite3, tensorflow, tensorflow-cc, tensorflow-common, threadpool, v8, vcpkg-tool-bazel, and vulkan-hpp.
• Other minor improvements and bug fixes.

Documentation updates

The following documentation changes were published recently:

• Documented VcpkgManifestInstalledBaseDir for MSBuild solutions that use manifest mode and build multiple triplets, allowing a shared installation base directory with triplet-specific subdirectories (PR: MicrosoftDocs/vcpkg-docs#588, thanks @autoantwort!).
• Documented VCPKG_PROVIDED_FORTRAN, including its defaults and how custom triplets can select a different Fortran compiler (PR: MicrosoftDocs/vcpkg-docs#600).
• Added documentation for vcpkg print-usage, which displays usage information for installed packages (PR: MicrosoftDocs/vcpkg-docs#599).
• Documented the CURL_CA_BUNDLE environment variable for configuring the certificate authority bundle used for downloads (PR: MicrosoftDocs/vcpkg-docs#587).
• Expanded the platform-expression reference with the apple and bsd platform families, additional platform identifiers, and the corrected Xbox target condition (PR: MicrosoftDocs/vcpkg-docs#612).
• Documented --binary-cache-compression-level=<0-9> and VCPKG_BINARY_CACHE_COMPRESSION_LEVEL, including precedence, defaults, accepted values, and compatibility with existing cache entries (PR: MicrosoftDocs/vcpkg-docs#613, thanks @xiaozhuai!).
• Clarified how a repository-level nuget.config containing <clear /> can remove inherited binary-cache sources and cause authentication failures, with guidance for keeping the authenticated source in the effective configuration (PR: MicrosoftDocs/vcpkg-docs#614, thanks @hoshiizumiya!).
• Updated GitHub Actions examples to pin actions to full commit SHAs instead of version tags (PR: MicrosoftDocs/vcpkg-docs#617).
• Updated the maintainer guide with a policy for AI-reported bugs in new ports: report findings upstream, accept upstream’s assessment, and close the new port submission if upstream does not respond within 30 days. The update also clarifies terminology and other maintainer guidance (PR: MicrosoftDocs/vcpkg-docs#615).

Total ports available for tested triplets

While vcpkg supports a much larger variety of target platforms and architectures (as community triplets), the list above is validated exhaustively to ensure updated ports don’t break other ports in the catalog.

Thank you to our contributors

vcpkg couldn’t be where it is today without contributions from our open-source community. Thank you for your continued support! The following people contributed to the vcpkg, vcpkg-tool, or vcpkg-docs repos in this release by submitting pull requests (listed by GitHub username):

Learn more

You can find the main release notes on GitHub. Recent updates to the vcpkg tool can be viewed on the vcpkg-tool Releases page. To contribute to vcpkg documentation, visit the vcpkg-docs repo. If you’re new to vcpkg or curious about how a package manager can make your life easier as a C/C++ developer, check out the vcpkg website – vcpkg.io.

If you would like to contribute to vcpkg and its library catalog, or want to give us feedback on anything, check out our GitHub repo. Please report bugs or request updates to ports in our issue tracker or join more general discussion in our discussion forum.