Difference between Raspbian repositories

Question

When installing raspian via NOOBS the following repository can be found in /etc/apt/sources.list:

deb http://raspbian.raspberrypi.org/raspbian/ stretch main contrib non-free rpi

But there are a lot of packages "missing" that I frequently use. On a different raspberry pi that I upgraded from an older version of Raspbian the source repository is:

deb http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org/raspbian/ stretch main contrib non-free rpi

What is the differences between those two?

There is also a third repository: http://archive.raspbian.org/ (see RaspbianRepository). But that is a copy of the second one (see RaspbianMirrors)

Answer 1

The raspbian.org repository is the Debian archive for the Raspberry Pi architecture. The URL http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org directs you to a suitable (local) mirror of the raspbian.org repository. More information about this on raspbian.org website:

The mirror redirection system is available at http://mirrordirector.raspbian.org/ . It provides the same files as http://archive.raspbian.org/ and can be used in apt sources etc

As Joan pointed out: the repository on raspberrypi.org is maintained by the charity. It adds packages made for the Raspberry Pi that are not part of Raspbian. Here's a relevant post on the Raspberry Pi forums.

Answer 2

The Raspbian repository is at raspbian.org.

The Raspberry Pi charity have added their own packages to augment Raspbian. They include these packages in their "Raspbian" distribution. These packages are not part of Raspbian and are held in the raspberrypi.org repository.