Meson on Francesco's blog

How to integrate Vcpkg with Meson Build system (Modern way)

Wed, 29 Apr 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Photo by Steve A Johnson from Pexels

Well, I already published a way to make Meson work with vcpkg and today I have a newer way to do the same.

I was writing a simple SFTP client and I needed the libssh library. Here is the modern way to set it up:

Prerequisites

Install vcpkg as usual
Install Visual Studio, Desktop C++ to make it works

Step-by-Step Guide

Install dependencies:
1

$ vcpkg install libssh pkgconf
Note: Remember to install pkgconf; Meson needs it to find where the libraries are.

How to integrate Vcpkg with Meson Build system

Wed, 14 May 2025 00:00:00 +0000

Photo by @theshubhamdhage from Unsplash.com

The worst part about developing on Windows is developing on Windows. Okay, jokes aside, life is generally easier on Linux.

On Linux, package management is typically handled by the OS. You just download the library with the -devel suffix, and in meson.build, you add the dependency() function to link it to your program.

On Windows, however, you often find yourself hunting for sketchy installers, manually wiring up INCLUDE and LIB paths, or dealing with the dreaded “DLL hell”.