Originally posted by claydoh
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With Flatpaks there is practically no difference regarding speed compared to "native" packages. Flatpaks start faster than Snaps (and AppImages), of course - on older systems with HDDs this is more relevant the older the system gets (computing power wise and HDD/SDD wise - I hope this is correct English…). On brand-new, state-of-the-art systems the speed difference between Flatpaks and Snaps (and AppImages) becomes less relevant.
If you install just two or three Flatpaks the drive space used can be much more compared to "native" packages due to the fact that things like Mesa, GNOME Application Platform, Nvidia drivers and other necessary stuff for the application and your individual system have to be installed alongside as Flatpaks.
Because these "core" packages are only installed once this difference diminishes the more Flatpaks you install. Similar is true with Snaps. As a rule of thumb AppImages are bigger than "native" packages because they always have to contain everything they need in every single image individually (but they don't need extra drivers for an Nvidia GPU for example).
If drive space really is an important factor for you these days try to avoid all three of those "containerized" formats.
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