Hex vs R-universe

Hex is a package manager for the BEAM ecosystem, including Elixir and Erlang. Its services include an HTTP API, a website, a package and index repository, HexDocs, Mix integration, and other components. Packages work with Mix, Rebar, and erlang.mk, and the site provides usage guidance for Gleam. Developers can fetch dependencies without creating an account.

Organizations can publish and retrieve private packages and manage which users can access them. Free organizations can publish public dependency policies; paid organizations can make policies private and apply them to public and private packages. A private package can depend only on packages in its organization’s repository and the global hexpm repository. Documentation explains how to build and serve a repository on infrastructure an organization operates. Hex supports organization authentication keys for CI, and its source code is licensed under the Apache 2 License. The Open Source plan is free. Private Packages are listed at $9 / user / month, with an annual option at $90 / per user / per year. Enterprise pricing is by contacting sales. Hex lists API, self-hosted, and web platforms.

R-universe is rOpenSci’s platform for publishing and discovering research software in R. Its searchable catalogue covers R software, articles, and datasets, using R-specific indexing and ranking. Package and universe pages provide detailed information and rendered material. Users and developers can run personal CRAN-like package repositories whether or not they publish packages on CRAN; R-universe builds and deploys packages from Git repositories into installation repositories. It also provides a continuous integration development environment without configuration to help identify potential breakage before release. WebAssembly binary support is experimental. Publishing a packages.json registry requires a GitHub account and the R-universe GitHub app, although package repositories may be hosted on other public Git servers such as GitLab. Unauthenticated APIs support listing universes and packages, retrieving package information, and searching. The service is free at free and is available through web, API, Linux, macOS, and Windows. rOpenSci initiated and governs the platform. R-universe does not vet packages; each universe owner is responsible for policies and quality control.