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Add to SafariWhen comparing Nix vs Fink, the Slant community recommends Fink for most people. In the question“What are the best Mac package managers?” Fink is ranked 8th while Nix is ranked 9th. The most important reason people chose Fink is:
Fink is based on apt-get making the transition to anyone used to Debian-based environments easier.
Specs
Question Ranking
Pros
Pro No side effects when building packages
Nix is a purely functional package management system. This means that the act of building a package does not have side effects, such as destructively updating or deleting files that may be used by other packages.
Pro Isolated development environments
Nix allows the creation of project-specific shell and build environments which are isolated from the rest of the system. These environments are defined declaratively to ensure reproducibility.
Pro Can replace docker in some places
Pro Can use multiple versions of the same package
Because of the functional approach it takes, Nix makes it easy for systems to use multiple versions of the same package simultaneously, and ensure that updating or removing a package can't break other packages.
Pro The configuration works on "All machines"
No more of the traditional: "it works on my machine". When it says reproducible, this is the real deal.
Pro Will be familiar to apt-get users
Fink is based on apt-get making the transition to anyone used to Debian-based environments easier.
Pro Install from source
Pro Packages provided as binaries
Installed applications don't need to be compiled and built on the system.
Cons
Con Does not work well for services on non-NixOS systems
When using Nix with anything other than NixOS you can run into difficulties with trying to start up services. For example, you can install docker with Nix, but it won't integrate with the host system's systemd leaving you to handcraft awkward workarounds in order to start the background service that docker requires. This seems like a critical flaw when using Nix on anything that is not NixOS, and it's unfortunate because this affects many of the packages many users would be most interested in using Nix to handle.
Con Steep learning curve
Con Cannot handle filetypes that have different semantics across different versions
While the functional approach that Nix takes is great for sandboxing binary artifacts of packages, it seriously lacks any power in handling configuration files or user data. It's difficult to upgrade and downgrade files where semantics and syntax can change between versions. Especially in Debian/Ubuntu it can cause severe problems where the upgrade process blocks and the user needs to resolve the 3-way merge.
Con Feels slightly over-complicated
Con Doesn't support newer macOS versions
Doesn't support macOS Big Sur or Monterey. Says it's "coming soon."
Con Pre-compiled packages are often out of date
It happens often that the user will come across out of date, pre-compiled packages. This can impede on using new features released in apps due to using older releases.
