Prism is a free, open-source, cross-platform desktop download manager, written in Rust and built with Tauri, for anyone on Windows, macOS or Linux who wants faster, resumable and better-organised downloads than a browser provides.

What it is

Prism is a desktop application that takes over downloads from the browser and manages them in a single, dedicated interface. It is distributed as native installers for Windows 10 and 11, macOS 11 and later on both Apple Silicon and Intel, and Linux in .deb, .rpm and .AppImage form, and it is licensed under MIT with source published on GitHub. The interface is described as a "liquid-glass" design with dark and light themes, six accent colours and a mini window, and the project states it remains fast with thousands of downloads in the list.

The concrete problem it solves is the browser's own download engine. A normal browser download uses a single connection, so on servers that throttle each connection it is slow, and it is fragile: a closed laptop, a power cut or a pulled cable means starting again. Prism splits each download into up to 32 parallel connections and keeps them busy until the last byte, and on throttled servers the project claims it is up to 15 times faster than a browser download. It resumes exactly where it stopped and checks that the file on the server has not changed before continuing.

Key capabilities

• Multi-connection downloading across up to 32 parallel connections per file, with crash-safe resume that verifies the remote file is unchanged.
• Browser integration through an extension distributed on the Chrome Web Store for Chrome, Edge, Brave, Opera, Vivaldi and Helium, plus Firefox support documented in the browser extension guide; the README states downloads jump into Prism in about a quarter of a second.
• Video and audio extraction from YouTube and 1,800+ sites via yt-dlp, saving MP4 up to 8K/HDR or MP3 only, with subtitles, chapters and SponsorBlock.
• Protocol coverage spanning HTTP(S), FTP/FTPS, HLS and DASH streams, BitTorrent and magnet links.
• AI model downloads from Hugging Face by name, link or search, selecting a single GGUF version and one weights format, downloading over many connections and verifying each file against its SHA-256; gated models, mirrors such as hf-mirror.com and the LM Studio folder are supported.
• Organisation features including categories, queues with schedules and speed limits, "shut down when done", a site grabber, batch downloads and a clipboard monitor.
• A localised interface in English, Czech, German, Spanish, French, Italian, Indonesian, Turkish, Simplified Chinese and Arabic, following the system language or a choice made in Settings.

Who uses it and how

• Windows 10 and 11 users can install per-user with the _x64-setup.exe without admin rights, deploy the _x64_en-US.msi for all users, or carry the -windows-x64-portable.zip on a USB stick.
• macOS 11+ users on Apple Silicon install the _aarch64.dmg, while Intel Macs use the _x64.dmg.
• Linux users choose the _amd64.deb for Ubuntu, Debian and Mint, the .x86_64.rpm for Fedora and openSUSE, or the _amd64.AppImage on any distribution.
• People working with local AI models use Prism to fetch weights from Hugging Face, including gated repositories and mirrors, with checksum verification on arrival.
• Users who download overnight configure queues with schedules and speed limits and enable "shut down when done" so the machine sleeps after the queue finishes.

Getting started

Download the file matching the system from the latest GitHub release, or add the Prism extension from the Chrome Web Store, which Prism also walks through on first start and from Settings → Browser integration.

How it compares

The topic list positions Prism as an "idm-alternative", setting it against the proprietary Internet Download Manager model, and it differs on the axes the facts support: it is MIT-licensed and free, with no ads, no accounts and no telemetry. For site-specific video downloads it leans on yt-dlp's supported-site list rather than maintaining its own extractors.

When to use it — and when not

Prism is a good fit for a self-managing desktop user who wants multi-connection speed, resumable transfers and video or model downloads in one place, and who is comfortable with a manual first-run step. The installers are not code-signed because certificates cost money, so Windows users must pass through "More info → Run anyway" and macOS users must clear quarantine with xattr -dr com.apple.quarantine /Applications/Prism.app or use Privacy & Security → Open Anyway. Anyone who needs a signed, zero-friction enterprise deployment, or who wants a hosted service rather than a local application, should look elsewhere.

git clone https://github.com/FortoGraphy/prism-download-manager
cd prism-download-manager
npm ci --prefix app && npm ci --prefix extension
npm run build --prefix extension
cd app && npm run tauri:build

crates/prism-engine       download engine: segmented HTTP/FTP, HLS/DASH, resume, speed limiter
crates/prism-core         app logic: manager, SQLite, queues, scheduler, grabber, browser IPC
crates/prism-video        yt-dlp / ffmpeg management, quality choices, muxing
crates/prism-torrent      BitTorrent / magnet
crates/prism-native-host  browser ↔ app bridge (native messaging) and browser registration
crates/prism-testserver   configurable HTTP server for tests and benchmarks
app/                      React UI + Tauri 2 shell
extension/                MV3 extension (Chromium + Firefox)
site/                     prismdl.site