Cachix vs EngFlow Remote Caching

Cachix hosts Nix binary caches so teams can share binaries across CI, development, and deployment environments. Its CLI can push binaries, watch a Nix store, and configure Nix to use a cache. The service says its optimizations speed up cache roundtrips, while Cloudflare CDN provides performance and unlimited bandwidth on all plans. When a cache reaches its storage limit, least-recently-used entries are removed; Cachix says it sends a warning email at 85% of that limit. Documentation includes CI guides for GitHub Actions, Buildkite, CircleCI, GitLab CI, Hercules CI, Hydra, and Travis CI. Cachix Deploy uses a pull model to deploy continuously to Nix profiles such as NixOS, nix-darwin, and Home Manager. Teams can assign read or write access, revoke tokens, and require a token for private cache reads and writes; cache entries are signed. Enterprise options include on-premise or self-hosted deployment, SSO, SLA, dedicated premium support, custom deployment, and audit logs. Cachix offers a free plan and a 14-day trial. Listed Starter, Standard, and Pro plans have prices available by contacting Cachix.

EngFlow Remote Caching is a remote cache service for reducing repeated builds and test reruns, developer workload, and compute costs. It uses gRPC, cache compression, and Build without the Bytes to limit latency and unnecessary data transfers. A layered cache keeps frequently requested data available, while the Build & Test UI reports cache hit rates, build time, and status in real time. The Free tier supports Bazel and provides in-cluster caching on one machine with 32 CPU cores, running Linux. Enterprise supports Bazel, Goma for Chromium, and Soong for AOSP, as well as in-cluster or external storage such as S3 and GCS. Free is self-hosted; Enterprise can be self-hosted or managed. The service is available for Linux, macOS, Windows, web, and API use. EngFlow says builds run in isolated, encrypted environments with dedicated infrastructure by default, and its solutions receive regular third-party audits against the five SOC 2 principles. Free costs nothing; Enterprise pricing is custom quote. A trial request form is available, with no duration stated.