Devbox vs devenv
Devbox
jetify.com
devenv
devenv.shSide by side
| Figure | Devbox | devenv |
|---|---|---|
| Price from | $5/mo | Free |
| Free plan | — | Yes |
| Free trial | Yes | — |
| Open source | — | — |
| Web | Yes | Yes |
| Windows | Yes | Yes |
| macOS | Yes | Yes |
| Linux | Yes | Yes |
| Plans published | 4 | 1 |
| Spec score · Development Environment Managers | 8.5 (#6) | 8.7 (#3) |
| Spec score · Development Environment Management Tools | 8.5 (#4) | 8.6 (#3) |
| CI integration | The Devbox GitHub Action installs Devbox and can cache the Nix store in GitHub Actions workflows. | The documentation describes using devenv in GitHub Actions to run checks, builds, and tests in the development environment. |
| Configuration | A devbox.json file defines project packages, scripts, services, and environment configuration. | A project can declare packages, languages, services, tasks, secrets, and tooling in its environment configuration. |
| Secrets | Jetify Secrets securely stores secrets and environment variables and activates them when a Devbox shell starts. | Its SecretSpec integration separates secret declarations from provisioning and supports runtime loading from providers such as keyring, 1Password, dotenv, and environment variables. |
| Security | Jetify Cloud is described as SOC-2 certified and supports SSO for access management. | Projects must be explicitly trusted before auto-activation, which the documentation describes as protection against untrusted projects modifying the shell. |
| Services | Devbox can orchestrate project services with process-compose without Docker. | The homepage lists 42 preconfigured services, including PostgreSQL, Redis, MySQL, RabbitMQ, MinIO, Caddy, and Elasticsearch. |
Plans
Devbox
- Solo$5 a month
- Starter$25 a month
- Scale-up$250 a month
- EnterprisePriced on request
In their own words
Devbox
Devbox is an open-source command-line tool for creating isolated development shells from declared package lists. A project’s devbox.json can define packages, scripts, services, and environment configuration, drawing on a searchable Nix-powered catalog with over 400,000 versions of 80,000 packages. One definition can produce a local shell, a VS Code devcontainer, a Dockerfile, or a remote cloud development environment. Devbox can orchestrate project services with process-compose without Docker; Docker is needed only for container creation. The GitHub Action installs Devbox and can cache the Nix store in workflows, and documented integrations include direnv and a Visual Studio Code extension. Installation guidance lists Linux, macOS, and Windows through WSL2, and Devbox requires the Nix Package Manager. Jetify offers cloud and secrets services alongside the tool.
devenv
devenv uses Nix to define development environments for teams and CI. A project configuration can specify packages, languages, services, tasks, secrets, variables, files, and shell scripts. The project lists 58 supported languages and 42 preconfigured services, including PostgreSQL, Redis, MySQL, RabbitMQ, and Elasticsearch. Processes can be supervised with dependencies and restarts, while tasks can run in parallel and integrate with shells or commits. SecretSpec can read declared secrets from sources such as Keychain, 1Password, LastPass, dotenv, and environment variables. devenv can build OCI containers and run integration tests with its processes active; documentation also describes GitHub Actions use for checks, builds, and tests. It requires Nix and works on Linux, macOS, and WSL. As of devenv 2.4, the project no longer builds, tests, or releases it for Intel Macs. Projects must be explicitly trusted before automatic activation. The software is free and MIT licensed, with GitHub and Discord linked for help and community. Cached shell startup is listed as under 100 ms after the first build; devenv Cloud is in private beta.