head to head · open source
nx vs devbox
nx has 29,443 GitHub stars, 2,973 forks, 490 open issues and last shipped yesterday. devbox has 12,440 stars, 364 forks, 466 open issues and last shipped 2 days ago. nx leads on adoption by 137% (29,443 vs 12,440 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 | 2026-11-02 | 2026-11-01 |
| Forks | ⑂ 3.0K | ⑂ 364 |
| 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
Smart Monorepos · Fast Builds Docs • Changelog • Blog • Courses • YouTube Nx is a monorepo solution for TypeScript and polyglot codebases. Built with Rust for performance, extensible via TypeScript. Caches what didn't change, runs only what's affected, and comes with an integrated CI solution. Start simple, scale as you grow. Quick Start Visit the Nx quickstart docs to get started. Why Nx? Incremental by design Run npx nx init in any npm/pnpm/yarn workspace. Nx picks up your existing package.json scripts, caches their outputs, and runs only what's affected. No changes to your setup required…
About devbox
Devbox Instant, easy, and predictable development environments What is it? Devbox is a command line tool that lets you easily create isolated shells for development. You start by defining the list of packages required by your development environment, and devbox uses that definition to create an isolated environment just for your application. In practice, Devbox works similar to a package manager like yarn – except the packages it manages are at the operating system level (the sort of thing you would normally install with brew or apt get ). With Devbox, you can install over 400,000 package versions from the Nix…
read the full devbox overview →
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Frequently asked questions
Is nx or devbox more popular?
nx has 29,443 GitHub stars and devbox has 12,440. 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 (29,443 stars) or its MIT licence terms. Choose devbox if its feature set, stack or Apache-2.0 licence fits better. Both are self-hostable.