envrc VS nixpkgs

Compare envrc vs nixpkgs and see what are their differences.

envrc

Emacs support for direnv which operates buffer-locally (by purcell)
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envrc nixpkgs
18 973
325 15,656
- 5.3%
6.4 10.0
10 days ago about 12 hours ago
Emacs Lisp Nix
- MIT License
The number of mentions indicates the total number of mentions that we've tracked plus the number of user suggested alternatives.
Stars - the number of stars that a project has on GitHub. Growth - month over month growth in stars.
Activity is a relative number indicating how actively a project is being developed. Recent commits have higher weight than older ones.
For example, an activity of 9.0 indicates that a project is amongst the top 10% of the most actively developed projects that we are tracking.

envrc

Posts with mentions or reviews of envrc. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2023-12-09.
  • Emacs Advent Calendar 9: devdocs, code-cells, dREPL, etc.
    17 projects | /r/emacs | 9 Dec 2023
    buffer-env: A pure-Elisp version of the direnv utility. Useful to make Emacs aware of Python virtualenvs (which, judging by the questions posted here, is unfortunately still a complication for a lot of people). Similar to (and inspired by) envrc, but doesn't require the direnv program.
  • Nix Survival Mode: macOS upgrades won't break Nix anymore
    12 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 25 Oct 2023
    Yes, most Nix users employ https://direnv.net or the equivalent for your IDE of choice. Emacs for instance has https://github.com/purcell/envrc which set per-buffer variables.
  • Beginner question: how do I set up virtual environments in my Python buffer?
    3 projects | /r/emacs | 22 Apr 2023
    Also take a look at the envrc package. I think it handles multiple projects better.
  • How do YOU use your PKMS?
    5 projects | /r/PKMS | 21 Apr 2023
    I further make my software projects so that when I click a link I go into an environment pre-loaded with their dependencies so dropping in/out of projects is always frictionless. I do this with the reproducibility guarantees of nix, along with glue like nix-direnv and envrc-mode to direnv.
  • Minimal approach for python devel environment with flake
    4 projects | /r/NixOS | 4 Feb 2023
    In conjunction with installing direnv on your favorite text editor, it's a very hassle free experience. Everything happens automatically. If you use Emacs, i higly recommend envrc.el
  • Nix and envrc
    3 projects | /r/emacs | 3 Feb 2023
    Direnv is installed using the nix-direnv installation instructions under "Via configuration.nix in NixOS". I read some recommendations that envrc.el is a better alternative then direnv.el, and after some testing I have to agree. (envrc-global-mode) is enabled in my config. This works perfectly with a normal emacs instance.
  • Emacs + emacs-direnv + Nix + vterm does not just work
    1 project | /r/emacs | 27 Dec 2022
    I don't use flake.nix, only shell.nix, though check if the envrc package works any better for you. https://github.com/purcell/envrc
  • Wrapping gcc with libraries
    2 projects | /r/NixOS | 4 Dec 2022
    As an alternative to emacs-direnv, I’d recommend the “envrc” package.
  • Eglot appreciation post
    3 projects | /r/emacs | 8 Jun 2022
    btw, my main issue regarding tramp was the fact that I didn't have my environment generated by direnv, via the https://github.com/purcell/envrc package. I use direnv almost exclusively to activate my nix-shell, so I can access the exact software dependencies required by that directory of a project.
  • Is it possible to let overlay Emacs use locally configured Agda libraries inside nix-shell?
    1 project | /r/NixOS | 19 May 2022
    I'm not familiar with these tools too but I highly recommend to look at https://github.com/purcell/envrc. If you are not familiar with direnv I suggest to try it with nix-shell/flakes before.

nixpkgs

Posts with mentions or reviews of nixpkgs. We have used some of these posts to build our list of alternatives and similar projects. The last one was on 2024-04-22.
  • Air Force picks Anduril, General Atomics to develop unmanned fighter jets
    1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 25 Apr 2024
    https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/commits?author=neon-sunset
  • Eelco Dolstra's leadership is corrosive to the Nix project
    6 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 22 Apr 2024
    I see two signers in the top 6 displayed on https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/graphs/contributors
  • 3rd Edition of Programming: Principles and Practice Using C++ by Stroustrup
    6 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 19 Apr 2024
    For a single file script, nix can make the package management quite easy: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/doc/languages-f...

    For example,

    ```

  • NixOS/nixpkgs: There isn't a clear canonical way to refer to a specific package
    1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 9 Apr 2024
  • NixOS Is Not Reproducible
    1 project | news.ycombinator.com | 7 Apr 2024
    Yes, Nix doesn't actually ensure that the builds are deterministic. In fact it works just fine if they aren't. There are packages in nixpkgs that aren't reproducible: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/issues?q=is%3Aopen+is%3Aiss...
  • The xz attack shell script
    5 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 2 Apr 2024
    I'm not familiar with Bazel, but Nix in it's current form wouldn't have solved this attack. First of all, the standard mkDerivation function calls the same configure; make; make install process that made this attack possible. Nixpkgs regularly pulls in external resources (fetchUrl and friends) that are equally vulnerable to a poisoned release tarball. Checkout the comment on the current xz entry in nixpkgs https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/master/pkgs/tools/comp...
  • Debian Git Monorepo
    4 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 2 Apr 2024
    NixOS uses a monorepo and I think everyone's love it.

    I love being able to easily grep through all the packages source code and there's regularly PRs that harmonizes conventions across many packages.

    Nixpkgs doesn't include the packaged software source code, so it's a lot more practical than what Debian is doing.

    https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs

  • From xz to ibus: more questionable tarballs
    5 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 1 Apr 2024
    In this specific case, nix uses fetchFromGitHub to download the source archive, which are generated by GitHub for the specified revision[1]. Arch seems to just download the tarball from the releases page[2].

    [1]: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/3c2fdd0a4e6396fc310a6e...

    [2]: https://gitlab.archlinux.org/archlinux/packaging/packages/ib...

  • GitHub Disabled the Xz Repo
    5 projects | news.ycombinator.com | 29 Mar 2024
    True, but irrelevant -- _some packages_, _somewhere_, do depend on xz, which, if built, requires pulling the source from GitHub (see the default.nix: https://github.com/NixOS/nixpkgs/blob/nixos-23.11/pkgs/tools...)

    It's not the vulnerability that's a problem right now (NixOS was protected by a couple of factors) but rather GitHub's hamfisted response.

    That is the problem.

  • Combining Nix with Terraform for better DevOps
    4 projects | dev.to | 19 Mar 2024
    We’ve noticed that some users have been asking about how to use older versions of Terraform in their Nix setups [1, 2]. This is an example of the diverse needs of people and the importance of maintaining backward compatibility. We hope that nixpkgs-terraform will be a useful tool for these users.

What are some alternatives?

When comparing envrc and nixpkgs you can also consider the following projects:

emacs-direnv - direnv integration for emacs

asdf - Extendable version manager with support for Ruby, Node.js, Elixir, Erlang & more

dotemacs

Home Manager using Nix - Manage a user environment using Nix [maintainer=@rycee]

direnv - unclutter your .profile

git-lfs - Git extension for versioning large files

lsp-bridge - A blazingly fast LSP client for Emacs

easyeffects - Limiter, compressor, convolver, equalizer and auto volume and many other plugins for PipeWire applications

buffer-env - Buffer-local process environments for Emacs

spack - A flexible package manager that supports multiple versions, configurations, platforms, and compilers.

stack - The Haskell Tool Stack

waydroid - Waydroid uses a container-based approach to boot a full Android system on a regular GNU/Linux system like Ubuntu.