Differences in Mod Publishing Sites

There are a couple of different sites that are popular for publishing Stardew Valley mods on, so this page aims to document some key differences. Feel free to update it with your own findings!

You may also be interested in Updating Mods for Modders.

Topic	NexusMods (link)	ModDrop (link)	Github (link)
Audience	Large and vocal, since NexusMods is known as a hub for many different games, including Stardew Valley	Compared to NexusMods, it seems smaller, and they don't post comments, questions, or bug reports as often.	Tends to only exist if your mod already is well-known.
Making a Mod Page and Uploading the Mod	The very first thing you do is write the mod description, in bbcode. It's later in the process that you can upload the mod file, and you can already include the UpdateKeys since your page exists. You can choose when to publish, so if you wanted to write up the entire page first, have your UpdateKeys, and still need more time before you're ready to upload your mod file, you can take your time.	The very first thing you have to do is upload a file, before you get to write anything for the mod description. Because of this, your page doesn't exist yet, so you'd have to upload a new version of the file to include the UpdateKeys in the upload, after the page is created.	Uses markdown, has a preview option in the website. The releases page can sometimes be confusing for users between the source code and the compiled mod, but adding a note should make it clear.
Alternate / Optional Files and Update subkeys	If you have multiple files uploaded under Main, Optional / Misc. Files, you can easily set individual update subkeys for them. You can also easily move files between the categories, so if you uploaded 2 files under the Main category, you can change one to Optional or Miscellaneous afterwards.	If you have multiple files, you can set one as the Main, and the rest just hang out. You can easily set individual update subkeys for them. You can also easily move files between Main, Old, Hidden, and Deleted files.	GitHub Releases don't make use of update subkeys, so if you want to have alternate / optional versions of the file, or if you have multiple mods you want to release, either: 1) You have a different repo for each version or mod. 2) You keep them all on the same version number in the same repo (monorepo). For a working example of the second one, refer to Zoryn's releases.
Adding Images to Mod Page	You get a banner with specific size restrictions. You also get regular images that you can caption and the captions are visible. You can reorganize the regular images to be in whatever order you like.	No banner, but there is an image that can be specifically associated with the file upload. You also get regular images, but while you can give them a title, this does not show up as a caption. The images cannot be manually reorganized; they must be in alphabetical order or in order of upload. If you want to customize the order, you can start the image name with numbers, and if you'll have more than 10 images, use a leading 0 for the first 9 so that they show up in the correct order. Specifically, 01, 02, 03, etc. before getting to 10, 11, 12, etc.	You can include preview images as part of your readme, provided the images are uploaded on Github. See here for a guide on how to do it.
Statistics	You can easily see how many views your mod has, along with downloads (unique and not-unique), endorsements, and a chart that shows you the previously mentioned data over time. For example, it would allow you to see how your view / download / endorsement count went up after an update.	You can't see the number of views or downloads your mod has. You can see the number of subscribers and a rating (thumbs up / down). Subscribing seems to be closest to NexusMods tracking, based on a forum post. It updates the user when the mod author has updated the mod. Ratings seem to be closest to NexusMods endorsements, based on the FAQs.	Unclear, you can see views from Github statistics, I think? People can also react to individual mod releases, including little hearts, thumbs up, and such.
Mod Page Notifications	You will get a notification when someone posts a comment or a bug report (if you have those toggled).	You will get a notification when someone posts a comment, but you won't get a notification if someone posts a bug report.	You will get a notification when someone reports an issue on Github.
Multiple Contributors to a Mod Page	You can add multiple people to a mod page as contributors under User permissions > Give users access to edit this mod. Contributors can manage the description, bug reports, upload files, and delete / hide the mod. These permissions are all in one; you cannot configure the access individually. The contributors will not be notified that they have been added as contributors, but they can access the mod now under My Mods > Other Files. There is only 1 true owner, and ownership can be transferred by contacting NexusMods support.	You can add multiple people to a mod page as contributors under Edit Contributors. You individually configure which permissions they have (managing roles, the content of the mod page, bug reports, mod name, files, and whether they can delete the mod). New contributors receive a notification that they've been added as a contributor and need to confirm before their name shows up on the mod page as a contributor. To transfer ownership: after adding a contributor with full admin permissions, you can remove yourself as a contributor.	You can accept pull requests from other users, and with those, users can contribute to code / readmes / other documentation. You can also add collaborators to a repository, which allows them to directly commit and push changes. Collaborators can also upload releases. There is only 1 true owner, and ownership can be transferred.
Deleting Files and/or the Mod page	Nexus changed their format back in 2021 and now you can only archive old mod files, you can't delete them. This means folks could still access the deleted file if they know how. If you wanted to delete the mod page entirely and not just individual files, you can submit a request to Nexus staff. They require justification and it's unlikely they'll accept anything beyond "it's broken" or something to that effect.	You can "delete" mod files on a mod page, but they're still visible to the mod author under the deleted files. If you wanted to delete the mod page entirely and not just individual files, you have to go through the ModDrop app. You can't do it from the website.	You can delete files including readmes (which are sort of like mod pages) at any time.