Package types

Unity’s Package Manager supports two package types:

UPM packagesA Package managed by the Unity Package Manager. Refer to Packages.
See in Glossary (Unity Package Manager built-in format).
Asset packagesA collection of files and data from Unity projects, or elements of projects, which are compressed and stored in one file, similar to Zip files, with the .unitypackage extension. Asset packages are a handy way of sharing and re-using Unity projects and collections of assets. More info
See in Glossary (.unitypackage format).

The following table compares the differentiating characteristics of these package types:

Characteristic	UPM packages	Asset packages
Format	Collection of files and folders, which might be compressed, depending on the distribution method.	A compressed file with a `.unitypackage` extension.
Primary source for the package	Unity registry, scoped registry, or Asset StoreA growing library of free and commercial assets created by Unity and members of the community. Offers a wide variety of assets, from textures, models and animations to whole project examples, tutorials and Editor extensions. More info See in Glossary	Asset Store
Uses a package manifestEach package has a manifest, which provides information about the package to the Package Manager. The manifest contains information such as the name of the package, its version, a description for users, dependencies on other packages (if any), and other details. More info See in Glossary file	Yes	No
UI action for adding the package to a project	Install	Download and import
Project folder the package is added to	`Packages`	`Assets`
Cache the package is added to	Global cache	Asset package cache. Refer to Location of downloaded asset package files.
You can manually remove the package from the cache	No	Yes
Sets of tabs that appear in the Details panel	Description, Version History, Dependencies, Samples (if provided), Images (if provided)	Overview, Releases, Imported Assets, Images

Additional resources

Concepts

Package states and lifecycle