Concept of autopackage was to "improve" Linux to a desktop platform, with stable binary interfaces comparable to Windows and MacOS.

[5] Autopackage is not intended to provide installation of core applications and libraries for compatibility reasons.

Unlike these formats, Autopackage verifies dependencies by checking for the presence of deployed files, rather than querying a database of installed packages.

This simplifies the design requirements for autopackage by relying on available resources, rather than necessitating tracking all the package choices of all targeted distributions.

[6] Programs that use autopackage must also be relocatable, meaning they must be installable to varying directories with a single binary.