Colmena
Ranked 9 of 19 deployment tools by recommenders
Free tool for deploying NixOS systems with a push model, often used alongside deploy-rs for its nice features and automation.
Free tool for deploying NixOS systems with a push model, often used alongside deploy-rs for its nice features and automation.
9 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 9
- criticize it
- 0
- approval share
- 100%
Recommended in 7 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: recommended
- February 2026: not recommended
- March 2026: not recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: recommended
- June 2026: not recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: recommended
- September 2026: recommended
- October 2026: recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it doesn’t carry the badge
- 9 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, not met.
- Nobody criticizes itNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 7 of 13 monthsNeeds 4 or more, met.
The same three rules apply to every product, and the badge can’t be bought. How the badge works
What people say about it
The reasons people give, with the number of comments that give each one. Open a reason to read what they said.
Why people recommend it
Each mark is one comment
Automates NixOS deployments
“Have a look at projects like NixOps or Colmena to see some more automation”
Comment from 20 Oct 2026 in “NixOS is making me less afraid” “one nixos-build or colmena call”
Comment from 18 Apr 2026 in “Migrating from DigitalOcean to Hetzner: From $1,432 to $233 With Zero Downtime” “NixOS deploying with colmena”
Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “NixOS 25.11 released” Push-model NixOS deployment
“I'd probably just do NixOS + colmena, and do a push model forever.”
Comment from 8 Aug 2026 in “The Nixpkgs core team has disbanded” “NixOS deploying with colmena”
Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “NixOS 25.11 released”
Other deployment tools people recommend
The four most recommended other deployment tools, with the same counts for each, so you can compare like for like. The tick on each bar marks the 2 to 1 line the badge needs.
See all 19 deployment tools, rankedWhat people said
6 of the 9 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“Have a look at projects like NixOps or Colmena to see some more automation”
“There are several ways to do this. For one, see”
“I'd probably just do NixOS + colmena, and do a push model forever.”
“I use colmena and deploy-rs on different projects because they have some nice features”
“one nixos-build or colmena call”
“NixOS deploying with colmena”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.