On Linux, most programs are available pre-compiled through your package manager. However if you wanted a package that wasn’t already available for your specific family of distros, you would usually have to compile it yourself. It’s not that hard to do, but it does take awhile on install and every update after.
Flatpak (as well as snap and appimage) fix this by being more universal, a flatpak program can be installed on any distro that flatpak is available for.
There are downsides to flapaks though, and not everyone likes them. But if you want an app that’s not available through conventional means and you don’t want to use flatpak/snap/etc, compiling from source may be the only choice left.
On Linux, most programs are available pre-compiled through your package manager. However if you wanted a package that wasn’t already available for your specific family of distros, you would usually have to compile it yourself. It’s not that hard to do, but it does take awhile on install and every update after.
Flatpak (as well as snap and appimage) fix this by being more universal, a flatpak program can be installed on any distro that flatpak is available for.
There are downsides to flapaks though, and not everyone likes them. But if you want an app that’s not available through conventional means and you don’t want to use flatpak/snap/etc, compiling from source may be the only choice left.