Ccache vs nix-serve
Ccache
ccache.devnix-serve
github.comSide by side
| Figure | Ccache | nix-serve |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | — |
| macOS | Yes | — |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Build Cache Software | 8.4 (#3) | 7.7 (#14) |
| License | Ccache is free software released under the GNU General Public License version 3 or later. | The repository lists the project under the LGPL-2.1 license. |
| Maintainer | Ccache has been developed and maintained by Joel Rosdahl since 2010. | The repository owner is Eelco Dolstra, whose GitHub profile lists Utrecht, Netherlands. |
| Purpose | Ccache speeds up recompilation by caching previous compilations and reusing results when the same compilation is repeated. | nix-serve serves a Nix store as a binary cache that other Nix installations can use as a substituter. |
Plans
In their own words
Ccache
Ccache is a build tool that can reduce repeated compilation work by storing prior results and recognizing when a single-file compilation recurs. It supports compilers such as GCC, Clang and MSVC, and languages including C, C++, assembler, CUDA, Objective-C and Objective-C++, with support varying by compiler and language. Runtime support includes Linux, macOS and native Windows at support level A, and Windows with MSYS2 and other Unix-like platforms at level B. Direct and depend modes can avoid running the preprocessor. Remote caching is possible through adaptable storage backends, with listed helpers for HTTP, HTTPS and Redis protocols. Ccache records cache hit and miss statistics, manages cache size, supports Zstandard compression, and uses BLAKE3 and XXH3 in its hashing and corruption checks. It works with Make, CMake, Ninja and Visual Studio. It is free software under the GNU GPL version 3 or later. Its scope has limits: multi-file compilation, linking and compilations with unsupported flags fall back to the real compiler. The project also cautions that cache misses add overhead and recommends measuring typical workloads.