Embodiments of the present invention disclose a software download method and apparatus. The method includes: acquiring a fanout command and a replacement instruction delivered by a device management server, and replacing, according to the replacement instruction, a software identifier in the fanout command with a software local download address generated for software; delivering the converted fanout command to each terminal corresponding to the fanout command, so that each terminal downloads the software according to the software local download address. The present invention further provides another software download method and software download apparatus. In the embodiments, multiple terminals can be effectively prevented from retrieving data externally, and a local storage function provided by a device management gateway is used to directly acquire download data of the software from a local network of the device management gateway, thereby significantly improving the efficiency.