No. 11 of 51 ·Development Environment Managers

GVM

Mac · Linux

Freedom report

Two barsScore 6.5

Free tierA free tier is on its own pricing page
Open codeNo open-source code on record
Runs widely2 of 6 device platforms
DocumentedPlans, terms and facts published

GVM is ranked #11 of 51 in development environment managers on Freedom251. It runs on Linux, macOS. There is a free plan.

GVM plans and pricing

All plans

gvm Free Go version management · MIT-licensed software github.com · 4 Oct 2026

Compared on development environment managers

Free plan: Yes
Supported scope: single_language
Project version pinning: Yes
Lockfile support: Yes
Automatic switching: Yes
Shell integration: Yes
Operating systems: cross_platform
CI/CD usage: Yes

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The record

Purpose: GVM provides an interface to manage Go versions.
Install versions: It installs and uninstalls Go versions by tag, including releases and the tip version.
GOROOT changes: The `gvm diff` command lists added and removed files in GOROOT.
Package sets: It manages GOPATH package sets and can keep a package set local to a repository.
Available releases: The `gvm listall` command lists available release tags, with an option to include weekly builds.
Install options: Install options include choosing a source or name, installing protobufs or build tools, and preferring or requiring binaries.
Project linking: GVM can link project directories into GOPATH.
Native dependencies: GVM supports package set-specific native code and dependencies using an overlay prefix and related environment variables.
Platforms: The README provides requirements and setup instructions for macOS and Linux, and also lists FreeBSD requirements.
Prerequisites: The installation instructions require Bison, and the platform-specific sections list additional tools such as Git, Mercurial, Make, and GCC.
License: The repository includes an MIT license granting permission to use, copy, modify, distribute, sublicense, and sell copies of the software subject to its conditions.
Security: The GitHub security page opened for the repository displays no security details in the accessible page content.
Maintainer: The README says the project is lovingly maintained by Benjamin Knigge and welcomes contributions.
Limitations: The README says compiling Go 1.5 and later requires an existing Go installation for bootstrapping, and gives Go 1.4 as an example.
Price from: Free

Where it ranks on Freedom251

Best Development Environment Managers in 2026#11 of 51
Best Runtime Version Managers in 2026#7 of 30

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Sources

github.com/moovweb/gvm· checked 4 Oct 2026
github.com/moovweb/gvm/blob/master/LICENSE· checked 4 Oct 2026
github.com/moovweb/gvm/security· checked 4 Oct 2026