DDEV vs Nix
DDEV
ddev.com
Nix
nixos.orgSide by side
| Figure | DDEV | Nix |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | Free | Free |
| Free plan | Yes | Yes |
| Free trial | — | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Self-hosted | — | Yes |
| Plans published | 1 | 1 |
| Spec score · Development Environment Managers | 8.2 (#12) | 8.3 (#11) |
| Spec score · Development Environment Management Tools | 8.1 (#7) | 8.2 (#6) |
| Purpose | DDEV is a local development environment for web developers that launches Docker based environments for PHP and Node.js. | Nix is a tool for package management and system configuration that supports reproducible, declarative, and reliable systems. |
| Support | The project points users to documentation, GitHub issues, Discord, and contact options for support. | The project provides community help through its official forum and Matrix space, and lists consulting companies for professional support. |
| Supported platforms | DDEV is supported and tested on macOS, Windows, and Linux. | The Nix reference manual lists Linux on i686, x86_64, and aarch64, and macOS on x86_64 and aarch64. |
Plans
In their own words
DDEV
DDEV is a free, open-source local development environment for people who build websites. It launches Docker-based projects for PHP and Node.js on macOS, Windows, and Linux. A project can be started, customized, shared, and extended, with compose workflows, IDE integration, and resource controls. The supported stack includes PHP, Node.js, MySQL, PostgreSQL, nginx, Apache, Redis, and Mailpit. Presets cover Laravel, WordPress, Drupal, TYPO3, Backdrop, Magento, Craft CMS, and other projects. Its router manages custom domain names and HTTPS automatically. Add-ons, lifecycle hooks, and user-supplied Dockerfiles provide extension points. Provider recipes and integrations include Acquia, Git, Lagoon, local files, Pantheon, Upsun, and rsync. DDEV concentrates on local development and does not deploy code. Public hosting is described as experimental, without backing from a security team. Support is available through documentation, GitHub issues, Discord, and contact options.
Nix
Nix is a free package management and system configuration tool for creating reproducible, declarative systems. It builds packages in isolation to avoid undeclared dependencies and help keep builds consistent across machines. Users can define and share development and build environments across projects and languages, install software from URLs or source code, and use virtual machines for integration testing. Nix supports dependency resolution, lockfiles, workspaces and offline installation; its package formats include Nix expressions, derivations and flakes. The Nix Packages collection offers over 140,000 packages. The wider ecosystem supports remote builds and deployments, binary caches, cross compilation, atomic upgrades and rollbacks to earlier package versions. Nix runs on Linux and macOS, and on Windows through WSL2; multi-user Windows installation requires WSL systemd support. Documentation includes guides for GitHub Actions, Docker images, Terraform deployment, SSH provisioning and distributed builds. Nix is aimed at people familiar with command-line interfaces and plain-text editors, including developers, test engineers, DevOps engineers, system administrators, data scientists, students and open-source enthusiasts. It has no paid plan listed.