The only difference is that you usually trust the repo in Linux, but that’s a pretty significant “only thing,” in the sense that the repo is already the source of your whole system, so it better be trustworthy!
The "elegant" way of distributing 3rd party software for Linux is to ask the user to add your APT/RPM/[...] repo to their system. And most Linux distro maintainers anyway don't vouch for software in the main repos, beyond basic install-ability. The Debian project for example definitely doesn't do in-depth security analysis of every package in the repos: they just check the license, re-package it, and keep an eye on security updates in upstream.
