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SPECIFICTION
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Hydra vs Palace

Hydra

github.com

Palace

palace.plus

Side by side

FigureHydraPalace
Price fromFree—
Free planYes—
Free trial——
Open sourceYes—
WebYesYes
Windows—Yes
macOS—Yes
LinuxYesYes
iOS—Yes
Android—Yes
APIYes—
Self-hostedYes—
Plans published12
Spec score · Desktop Wallpaper Software8.7 (#5)7.9 (#12)
IntegrationsHydra jobset inputs can use Git checkout sources, and the documented examples use GitHub repositories.The guide names GitHub, GitHub Gist, and any public URL serving a JSON file as places to host wallpaper sources.

Plans

Hydra

  • HydraFree

Hydra pricing →

Palace

  • Palace lifetime license$4, paid once
  • Google Play$7.99, paid once

Palace pricing →

In their own words

Hydra

Hydra is a continuous integration service for projects based on Nix. It checks out project source periodically or continuously, builds it, runs tests, and produces reports. Work is organized into jobsets whose inputs can trigger builds when they change; jobsets can also depend on one another. Flake jobsets are supported when their outputs expose a hydraJobs attribute set. Jobs can produce packages, ISO images, or tarballs, and jobset inputs can use Git checkout sources. Hydra also provides a JSON API. It is aimed at Nix and NixOS package developers, not people who only need to use NixOS. Hydra is open source under GPL-3.0 and listed at free. It is self-hosted, with no hosted option listed, and running it is currently supported only on NixOS; the repository recommends the NixOS module for production. Flake evaluation is restricted from accessing files outside the Nix store. Some state is stored in the database, so backups are needed, and the wiki reports that hydra-queue-runner can sometimes leave queued builds unscheduled.

Visit github.com

Palace

Palace is a personal media manager and wallpaper engine for organizing and displaying wallpapers and other media. You can sort items into categories, albums, and favorites, then search by name or tag. Display choices include fill, fit, center, tile, stretch, or spanning multiple monitors, with adjustable background colors and effects. Automatic rotation can run sequentially or in shuffle mode, at intervals from five seconds to several hours, and can target individual displays. Palace supports GIFs, video files such as MP4 and WebM, GLSL shaders, and locally stored images; desktop video wallpapers require MPV. Online sources use public JSON files and must provide direct public media URLs, not private or password-protected files. Local media works offline, and ordinary use does not require an account. Palace says wallpapers, preferences, and settings stay on the device and personal images are not uploaded or accessed. The web hub supports browsing community sources, downloading wallpapers, and submitting source URLs. A Palace lifetime license costs $4 as a one-time purchase; Google Play costs $7.99, paid once for Android only.

Visit palace.plus