What is the difference between go get and go install?

go install is part of the workflow when working locally. Say you want to use a library, but for some reason a change is required. You would do:

• go get -d library, which only downloads it;
• make the change on the downloaded package;
• go install library to install the local version.

As far as I know go get has no flags to indicate it should not download, so it can’t replace go install here.

The same workflow is used when you develop a new package from scratch.

EDIT: six years later, Go 1.16 has updated and clarified the usage of go install and go get: https://tip.golang.org/doc/go1.16#modules

go install, with or without a version suffix (as described above), is now the recommended way to build and install packages in module mode. go get should be used with the -d flag to adjust the current module’s dependencies without building packages, and use of go get to build and install packages is deprecated. In a future release, the -d flag will always be enabled.