head to head · open source
nx vs devbox
nx has 29,349 GitHub stars, 3,002 forks, 490 open issues and last shipped yesterday. devbox has 12,362 stars, 357 forks, 466 open issues and last shipped yesterday. nx leads on adoption by 137% (29,349 vs 12,362 stars). nx is written in TypeScript under MIT; devbox is written in Go under Apache-2.0. nx has attracted 10% as many forks as stars, devbox 3%. nx was the more recently maintained of the two, and both are self-hostable with no licence fee. The two share 2 topic tags (build-system, build-tool), so they are genuine substitutes rather than adjacent tools.
Two open source projects, one decision. Both are free and self-hostable — the differences are community size, license terms, language stack and release pace.
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Side by side
| nx | devbox | |
|---|---|---|
| GitHub stars | ★ 29K | ★ 12K |
| License | MIT | Apache-2.0 |
| Written in | TypeScript | Go |
| Last push | 2026-09-17 | 2026-09-17 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 357 |
| Self-hosting | Yes | Yes |
| Data ownership | Your server | Your server |
pick nx if
- You weight community size — 29K stars and counting
- You want the MIT license terms
- Your stack matches TypeScript
- You value the larger contributor base for long-term maintenance
pick devbox if
- You want the devbox feature set and don't need the biggest community
- You prefer the Apache-2.0 license terms
- Your stack matches Go
- You evaluated both and devbox fits your workflow better
About nx
Nx is an MIT licensed monorepo platform for TypeScript and polyglot codebases that caches unchanged work, runs only affected tasks, and ships an integrated CI solution aimed at both developers and autonomous AI agents.
About devbox
Devbox is an open source, Apache 2.0 licensed command line tool written in Go that creates isolated, reproducible development shells from a single declaration file, and it is aimed at individual developers and teams who need identical toolchain versions on every machine and in every environment.
read the full devbox overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is nx or devbox more popular?
nx has 29,349 GitHub stars and devbox has 12,362. nx has the larger community by that measure.
Are nx and devbox free?
Both are open source. nx is licensed under MIT and devbox under Apache-2.0. Neither carries a licence fee.
What is the difference between nx and devbox?
nx is written in TypeScript and devbox in Go. The practical differences are community size, licence terms, language stack and release cadence — all compared in the table above.
Which should I choose, nx or devbox?
Choose nx if you want the larger community (29,349 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose devbox if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.