Devbox by Jetify
Hacker ApprovedRanked 3 of 5 dev environment managers by recommenders
People recommend Devbox as a simpler way to get Nix's benefits for development environments and packages, and as a Homebrew replacement. One commenter found it a little flaky lately.
People recommend Devbox as a simpler way to get Nix's benefits for development environments and packages, and as a Homebrew replacement. One commenter found it a little flaky lately.
11 people gave an opinion
- recommend it
- 10
- criticize it
- 1
- approval share
- 91%
Recommended in 5 of 13 months
- November 2025: not recommended
- December 2025: recommended
- January 2026: not recommended
- February 2026: recommended
- March 2026: recommended
- April 2026: recommended
- May 2026: not recommended
- June 2026: recommended
- July 2026: not recommended
- August 2026: not recommended
- September 2026: not recommended
- October 2026: not recommended
- November 2026: not recommended (month in progress)
Why it carries the badge
- 10 people recommend itNeeds 10 or more, met.
- 10 recommenders for every criticNeeds 2 to 1 or better, met.
- Recommended in 5 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
Works as Homebrew replacement
“was very happy to get rid of it and use `devbox` and similar tools instead”
Comment from 12 Mar 2026 in “Show HN: A context-aware permission guard for Claude Code” “it's generally better than Homebrew but lately it's been a little flaky”
Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “Devenv 2.0: A Fresh Interface to Nix” “it's probably the simplest most direct replacement for homebrew”
Comment from 9 Feb 2026 in “More Mac malware from Google search” - Comment from 25 Mar 2026 in “Nanobrew: The fastest macOS package manager compatible with brew”
Simpler Nix wrapper for dev environments
“My remaining uses of nix are just devbox which is a very palatable wrapper and nicer to use than flakes.”
Comment from 1 Dec 2025 in “NixOS 25.11 released” “it hides all the complexity of Nix while still giving all the benefits”
Comment from 11 Jun 2026 in “Homebrew 6.0.0” “It is like python vietualenv but backed by Nix.”
Comment from 3 Apr 2026 in “Show HN: Home Maker: Declare Your Dev Tools in a Makefile” - Comment from 9 Apr 2026 in “The Git Commands I Run Before Reading Any Code”
What people warn about
Each mark is one comment
Lately a little flaky
“it's generally better than Homebrew but lately it's been a little flaky”
Comment from 5 Mar 2026 in “Devenv 2.0: A Fresh Interface to Nix”
Other dev environment managers people recommend
The four most recommended other dev environment managers, 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 5 dev environment managers, rankedWhat people said
All 11 comments that mention it, newest first. Each links to the original comment.
“it hides all the complexity of Nix while still giving all the benefits”
“thought it looked like a nice abstraction”
“It is like python vietualenv but backed by Nix.”
“It works really well as a package manager.”
“was very happy to get rid of it and use `devbox` and similar tools instead”
“it's generally better than Homebrew but lately it's been a little flaky”
“Of course they switched to devbox which is nothing more than azure virtual desktop with some added bells and whistles”
“it made it so we have a lot more capable machines to do development on”
“it's probably the simplest most direct replacement for homebrew”
“I built devBox to move the source of truth out of tool-specific config files”
“My remaining uses of nix are just devbox which is a very palatable wrapper and nicer to use than flakes.”
Counts come from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026. How we count. Report a mistake.