Applications

This article lists applications built for and with Nix; it constitutes a listing of what may be called the Extended Nix Ecosystem (see Nix Ecosystem for the Core Nix Ecosystem).

If you are looking for Linux software/applications you should look at Software or its sub-article Applications.

Non-NixOS Distributions

Various applications built on top of Nix:

• not-os - build a system firmware for embedded devices

Built with Nix

Projects which leverage Nix.

• styx - Static site generator in Nix expression language
• bionix - manage and execute bioinformatics pipelines
• ethereum.nix - A collection of Nix packages and NixOS modules designed to make it easier to operate Ethereum related services and infrastructure
• nixos-mailserver - A complete and Simple NixOS Mailserver

Nix Platform

Projects which add support (e.g. for extra platforms or major capabilities) to Nix.

• nix-darwin - NixOS modules for Darwin
• musnix - real-time audio modules for NixOS
• nixGl - A wrapper to run OpenGL applications outside of NixOS

Nix Tooling

Various tools built for working with the Nix Ecosystem (e.g. enhancements or alternatives to core Nix tools).

General configuration

• home-manager - System for managing a user environment using Nix

Flakes

• deploy-rs - Nix flake deployment tool
• flake-utils-plus - Flake templates and helper library. Extension of below
• flake-utils - Set of flake-building utility functions
• flake-parts - Simplify Nix Flakes with the module system
• snowfall - Unified configuration for systems, packages, modules, shells, templates, and more with Nix Flakes.

Archives

• narfuse - FUSE filesystem for mounting Nix archive (NAR) files as a virtual Nix store

Clustering

• nix-delegate - Convenient utility for distributed Nix builds

Comparison

• nix-diff - Compare Nix derivations
• niff - Compare two Nix expressions to determine what attributes changes
• nvd - Nix/NixOS package version diff tool

Dependencies

• nix-visualize - Visualize the dependencies of a given package
• niv - Painless dependencies for Nix projects

Nix lang comprehension

• deadnix - Removes unused code from .nix files

• statix - Linter and suggestions for the nix programming language
• nil - Nix Language server, an incremental analysis assistant for writing in Nix.
• nixfmt - A formatter for Nix code
• nixpkgs-fmt - Nix code formatter for nixpkgs

Package maintenance

• nix-update - Swiss-knife for updating nix packages.
• nixpkgs-review - Review nixpkgs pull requests

Debugging

• dwarffs - Fetches DWARF debug info files for gdb automatically from cache.nixos.org
• nixseparatedebuginfod - Fetches debug symbols and source files for debuginfod-capables tools like gdb

Search

• nix-index - Quickly locate nix packages with specific files
• nix-du - Find which gc-roots take disk space in a nix store
• nix-info - Homebrew info querying for Nix
• userscan - Scans directories containing manually compiled programs and registers them with the Nix garbage collector
• nix-search-cli - CLI for searching packages on search.nixos.org

Shell

• nix-bash-completions - Bash completion for nix* commands
• nixos-shell (Mic92) - Spawns lightweight nixos vms in a shell (like vagrant)
• nixos-shell (chrisfarms) - like nix-shell, but for NixOS modules. Buildable version can be found in this fork
• extra-container - Run declarative NixOS containers from the command line. Similar to nixos-shell (chrisfarms)

Other

• nix-bundle - package Nix attributes into single-file executables.
• nix-user-chroot - install Nix as an unpriviliged user on any system
• nh - a rewrite of nixos-rebuild featuring diffs with nvd and a tree of builds with nix-output-manager, as well as other quality of life features such as package searching.

Nix Operations

Operations tools for the Nix Ecosystem:

Official

• Hydra - Nix's official continuous integration and build system.
• NixOps - Nix's official (but unmaintained) tool for deploying to NixOS machines in a network or the cloud.

Deployment

• Bento - a NixOS fleet manager supporting remote systems not up 24/7

• colmena - a NixOS deployment tool
• comin - A deployment tool to continuously pull from Git repositories.
• deploy-rs - a simple multi-profile Nix-flake deploy tool

• krops - a lightweight toolkit to deploy NixOS systems, remotely or locally
• lollypops - a parallel and stateless NixOS deployment tool
• Morph - a NixOS deployment tool
• Nixinate - A Nix flake library to provide app outputs for managing existing NixOS hosts over SSH.
• nixos-build --target-host
• NixOps - [Not recommended for new projects] a tool for deploying to NixOS machines in a network or cloud.
• Nixus - an experimental NixOS deployment tool

Docker

• Arion - configure Docker Compose with Nix modules
• Nixery - ad-hoc container images from Nix

Kubernetes

• kubenix - Kubernetes resource builder written in Nix
• nix-kubernetes - Kubernetes deployment manager written in nix

Alternative nix implementations & parser

• hnix (haskell, parser & evaluator)
• rnix (rust, parser)
• go-nix (go, parser & nix-compatible file hasher)
• nix-idea (java, parser)

Additional inofficial ecosystem

None of the services are required to use Nix. None of these services are affiliated with the NixOS Foundation.

Cachix

binary caches as a service. Free for public caches, subscription for private token-protected caches.

Hercules CI

simplify your CI setup with stateless build agents. Free for open source, per-user subscription for private repositories.

Garnix

nix CI, caching (open beta) and cloud hosting (private alpha) based on Nix as a service. Currently free, but offers commerical plans.

nixbuild.net

remote Nix builders as a service for x86_64 and AArch64. Pay-per-use.

See also

• awesome-nix
• Language-specific package helpers
• Alternative Package Sets
• Get inspiration from other peoples NixOS configuration
• NixOS Packages Search for searching through NixOS packages