DNF (software)

DNF (abbreviation for Dandified YUM)^[7][8][9] is a package manager for Red Hat-based Linux distributions and derivatives. DNF was introduced in Fedora 18 in 2013 as a replacement for yum;^[10] it has been the default package manager since Fedora 22 in 2015^[11] and Red Hat Enterprise Linux 8 ^[when?][12] and is also an alternative package manager for Mageia. DNF performs package management tasks on top of RPM, and supporting libraries.

Dandified Yum

DNF5 running on Fedora 41
Developer(s)	Red Hat
Initial release	18 January 2012; 13 years ago (2012-01-18)[1]
Stable release	5.2.13.1[2]  / 24 April 2025; 0 days ago (24 April 2025)
Repository	https://github.com/rpm-software-management/dnf,[3] https://github.com/rpm-software-management/dnf5[4]
Written in	dnf4: Python,[5] XML,[5] CMake,[5] shell script[5]  dnf5: C++,[6] Python,[6] CMake,[6] XML,[6] Ruby,[6] SQL,[6] C,[6] Perl,[6] shell script[6]
Operating system	Linux, IBM AIX
Platform	RPM
Available in	English
Type	Package management system
License	GPLv2+ & LGPLv2.1+ & New BSD License
Website	rpm-software-management.github.io

History

Perceived deficiencies of yum (which DNF is intended to address) include poor performance, high memory usage, and the slowness of its iterative dependency resolution.^[13] DNF uses libsolv, an external dependency resolver.^[13]

DNF was originally written in Python, but as of 2016^[update], efforts were under way to port it to C and move most functionality from Python code into the new libdnf library^{[needs update]}.^[14] In 2018, the DNF team announced the decision to move libdnf from C to C++.^[15][16] libdnf is already used by PackageKit, a Linux distribution-agnostic package system abstraction library, even though the library doesn't have most of DNF's features.^[17]

Since the launch of Fedora Linux 41, DNF5 is the new default packaging tool. This release features new performance enhancements, updated terminal output, and fully integrated modularity.^[18]

Adoption

DNF has been the default command-line package manager for Fedora since version 22, which was released in May 2015.^[11] The libdnf library is used as a package backend in PackageKit,^[17] which offers a graphical user interface (GUI). Later, dnfdragora was developed for Fedora 27 as another alternative graphical front-end of DNF.^[19][20] DNF has also been available as an alternate package manager for Mageia Linux since version 6 and may become the default sometime in the future.^[21]

In Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and by extension, AlmaLinux and Rocky Linux, yum is an alias for dnf.^[12]